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V 



THE MASTER-MISTRESS 

POEMS BY ROSE O'NEILL 



e autnor 



The master-mistress of my passion. 

— Shakespeare 




NewYork/ALFRED^A-KNOPF/ip^a 






COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY 
ROSE O'NEILL 

Published October, 19SS 






V^ Bet up and printed hv the VoU-Ballou Co., Binghamton. X. Y. 



Paper furnished by W. F. Ether ington d Co., New York, N. Y. 
Bound hy the Plimpton Press, Norwood, Mass. 



MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



OCTll'22 ^"^ 

©C1A686226 



TO THE FOUR WINDS 



Thanks are given to Messrs. Lothrop, Lee & 
Shepard, and to the Messrs, Harper for permis- 
sion to re-print some earher poems from my 
novels, The Loves of Edwy and The Lady in the 
White Veil. 



CONTENTS 

THE MASTER-MISTRESS I 

I BRING THIS WEIGHT 2 

THE SONNET BEGS MB 3 

IRISH SONG 4 

HUNTERS OF HEAVEN 5 

THE SON. He Complains of Dying Too Soon 7 

THE SEVEN FAREWELLS 9 

THE WIND ALONG THE LEAVES II 

ZANZOS 13 

THE DOOM-BRIDE 15 

MY DARKNESS 17 

THE FLYING DEAD 1 8 

THE HIGH HOUSE IQ 

ESTABLISHED 21 

A DREAM OF SAPPHO 22 

THE MUSE IN THE DOOR 25 

POET TO POET. To My Singing Brother 27 

SALE 29 

THE MASTER OF POETS 3 1 

THERE WHERE THE NIGHT WAS TALL 35 

I DREAMED YOU WEPT 36 

FORGOTTEN PATRICK 38 

TEARS 39 

THE FAIRY HUSBAND 4O 

THE OWL 43 

OWL SINISTER 45 

THE SILENT HOUND 46 

SHE WROTE IT. To Kallista 48 

WHERE THERE IS NO LARK 5O 

AS I WENT BY 5 1 



CONTENTS 

THE EAGLE HUNTER 52 

TWO PORTRAITS 54 

THE FOUR GOATS 55 

THE TWO BONNIE LORDS 56 

THE BEGINNING AND THE FULL OF LOVE 58 

THE GOING 59 

THE LOVELY GOER 60 

THE CRYING HEARTS 6 1 

DEATH SHALL NOT EASE ME OF YOU. To KaU'uta 63 

THE DELIGHT 65 

FAUN-TAKEN 67 

MEA CULPA 69 
THEY SPREAD THE PLANETS OUT FOR ME, Composed in 

Steep to KaUista ^0 

THE TRAPPER OF STARS 7^ 

THE THREE DEAD TONGUES 72 

THE SAVANT 73 

"l LEAVE YOU NOW WITH YOUR DELICIOUS EYES" 74 

BLACK POET TO SILVER POET ^(i 

WHOM SINGEST THOU? 77 

SPLENDOUR 7^ 

SOME DISHONOURED GARDEN 79 

AGAMEMNON • 80 

HIS STRANGENESS 81 

HIS BURDEN 82 

HIS TREACHERY 84 

HIS TREACHERY, TO ANOTHER TUNE 85 

HIS BEAUTY 86 

HIS LITTLENESS 87 

THE maker's STEALTH 88 

THE FLIGHT 89 

YOU SAW ME LOVE HIM 9O 

SO, YOU WOULD NOT FORGIVE ME 9I 

SICK WITH HEAVEN 92 



CONTENTS 

NORWAY 



I. 


THE MAGICAL HEARTS 




93 


II, 


THREE 




95 


III. 


SEA-COMER 




97 


IV. 


THE FAIRY CHILD. To Matta 




99 


V. 


MATTA JOURNEYING AMONG FJORDS 


I02 


VI. 


THE STAG 




1 03 


VII. 


THE EARTH 




104 




FOUR POEMS TO KALLISTA 




I. 


SILK 




106 


II. 


LIFT UP YOUR HANDS 




107 


III. 


THE BANQUET 




108 


IV. 


I WOULD NOT HAVE YOU SEE 


ME 


109 


AND 


NOW IT SEEMED TO ME 




IIO 


THE THIEF 




III 


INDIAN SONG 




113 


lee: 


A Portrait 




114 


Manuel's beds 




116 


Richard's house 




117 


THE 


TWO DESPAIRS 




119 


THE 


DESERT-DWELLER SAID. I, II 




120 


CONSCIOUSNESS 




122 


WHY 


■ HAVE YOU TURNED AWAY FROM ME, MY PRIDE? 


123 


NOW 


, MY LYRE 




124 


IS IT 


MY LAUGHTER? 




125 


HIS : 


DISTANCE 




126 


THE 


RECOVERY 




127 


LIPS 


AND EYES 




128 


TO A 


GREAT PRAISING POET 




129 


RETURN. I, II 




130 




WAR 






I. 


WAR 




132 


II. 


I LEFT MY PIPES 




134 


III. 


THE DEAD MEN FALL 




136 



CONTENTS 

IV. ANOTHER SPRING 137 

V. TO MATTHEW ARNOLD. I917 139 

VT. TO A POET, RETURNING FROM CHINA TO THE WAR I4O 

VII. WAR-WIFE 142 

VIII. THE ROADS 1 44 

IX. WHEN THE DEAD MEN DIE I46 

SOFT SONG. After the War 1 48 

THE SULLEN SON I49 

THE WAKING HOUSE 15O 

THE poet's two QUEENS 153 

AS YOU WENT 1 54 

NIGHT SONG 155 

THE RUNNERS 1 56 

THEY SAID, GO AND ASSUAGE HIM OR HE DIES 1 57 

PIGEONS 158 

FIERCELY KIND AND BLACKLY BRIGHT 159 

THE BETRAYED. Poor Cradle-Song 160 

THE DAY THE DOOM WAS FIXED 1 62 

YOU THOUGHT I LOVED YOU 1 64 

FOOL SONGS. I, II 165 

TO A POET COMING TO PARIS 1 67 

THE TOO WITTY HUSBAND 171 

SECOND FIDDLE 1 72 

THE EVENT I 73 

LINES COMPOSED IN SLEEP I74 

INVADER 175 

THERE WAS A FOOL 1 76 

THE WOMAN OF PROPERTY. Irish Song 1 77 

SING A SONG OF SAGES I 78 

CAPTURE 179 

TWENTY-SIX EARLY POEMS 

I. AND FEW THERE ARE 1 80 

II, I SIT A BEGGAR IN THE PORCH OF LOVE 181 

III. SHALL I CALL YOU AND CARRY YOU, NOW? 1 82 



CONTENTS 



IV. HE IS SO LITTLE AND SO WAN 

V. IF THOU REMEMBEREST ME 

VI. WHERE ARE YOU MY DEAR? 

VII. YOU WHO CAN, COME CHARM ME 

VIII. BUT IF YOU COME TO ME BY DAY 

IX. DO NOT WEEP NOW 

X. YOU WHO PIPE SO LOUD 

XI. SHUT IN THE JUNG-FRAU 

XII. UNHASP YOUR DOOR 

XIII. I MADE A LITTLE EATER 

XIV. WHO BEFRIEND ME 
XV. THE SISTER. Kallista 

XVI. TO A LIONESS 

XVII. THE TWO SORROWS 

XVIII. YOU ARE SO KIND NOW YOU ARE DEAD 

XIX. YOU WHO HAVE TAKEN EVERYTHING AWAY FROM 

ME 

XX. HERE I CAN STOP AT LAST 

XXI. THE MAKER 

XXII. BLOW AND BEAT UPON MY HUT 

XXIII. JAMIE. The Ballad of a Dead Boy 
XXIV. THE BED. Jamie 
XXV. BLIND EYES. Jamie 
XXVI. JAMIE 

LOVE-ENDING 

TO THE TERRIBLE MUSE 

A SKELETON ADDRESSES SOME CHILDREN OF A LATER TIME 

WHO PLAY WITH IT 
THE RETURNED 
THEN, EVEN THEN 
THE GIFT 
FIERCE SPLENDOUR 
THE GREAT CLOWN 
THE CANDLE 



183 
184 
185 

1 85 
187 
188 
189 
I go 
191 
192 

193 
194 

195 
196 

197 

199 
200 
201 
202 
203 
208 
210 
211 

212 
2x6 

217 
220 

222 
223 
224 

225 
227 



DRAWINGS 

THE MASTER-MISTRESS frontispiece 

THE FAUN INSTRUCTS THE POET UPON THE PIPES. 4O 

THE POETESS. 77 

THE LIPS OF EARTH. IIO 

CONSCIOUSNESS. 122 

THE SULLEN SON. I49 

THE SLAIN BUFFOON. 162 

THE ETERNAL GESTURE. 180 

LOVE-ENDING 212 



THE MASTER-MISTRESS 



THE MASTER-MISTRESS 

All in the drowse of life I saw a shape, 

A lovely monster reared up from the restless rock, 

More secret and more loud than other beasts. 

It, seeming two in one, 

With dreadful beauty doomed. 

Folded itself, in chanting like a flood. 

I said, "Your name, O Master-mistress?" 

But it, answering not. 

Folded itself, in chanting like a flood. 



[■] 



I BRING THIS WEIGHT 

I bring this weight of savage singing here, 

Fitting for you who feast upon fierce things, 
Like to one running from a wood in fear 
And triumph terrible, who strongly brings 

A bright beast held beneath his rended dress. 
Hilarious distress 
Of Spartan folly fainting with its prize. 

Of tearing trophy, burning boon and glee! 
But, oh, arise, 

And get me from my fanged captive free! 
Oh, come, oh quickly lift the cloak, and see 

Him gleaming, ere too deep he diggeth me I 



[2] 



THE SONNET BEGS ME 

The Sonnet begs me like a bridegroom, 
''Come within." 

"This palace! Not for me, the desert-born I" 
I turn me, as from some too lordly sin, 

And like a singing Hagar, pause and pass — 
To lift for night's sweet thieves my houseless horn 

In broken rhythms of the windy grass. 
I will not be the measure-pacing bride. 

But where the flutes come faintly. 
Sing outside. 
Like drifting sand my love doth drift and change — 
I strangely sing because my love is strange. 



[3] 



IRISH SONG 

And over the lone wet places, 

With your heart half sick in the stumbling dark, 
And your breath going wild with the hurry, 

I hear you coming to me again! 

I hear you coming and calling, 

Knowing me not for the Lonely, the Lost One, 
The Gone, Gone, Gone, for all of your panting; 

Your gold eyes finding me never again. 



[4] 



HUNTERS OF HEAVEN 

Hunters of Heaven, 

Halloo! 
Over the moon! 

On the track of the hurrying Heaven 
With hounds! The horn and the tune 
Of the hunters pursue 
The silvery panting, 
The radiant runner that flew, 
That sped like a spear. 
That battled with eagles for height. 
And trampled the stars that would stay him 
With heavenly fierceness and fight! 

Hunters of Heaven, 

Halloo! 
We are hot on his crystal heels, 
His flanks are dripping with dew, 
His bright knees falter and stay, 
He sighs as he goes! 
He faints with the horror of horns! 
Oh my prize! Oh, imperial prey! 
Oh, crested! Oh rose! 
But no! He is fled, he is gone, 

[s] 



With heavenly laughter and cries! 
He strikes off the hands of the worlds, 
He leaps on the walls of the skies! 
Far from his hunters that weep, 
Safe from his lovers — his foes, 
Into the uttermost deep, 
Gleaming, he goes! 

Hunters of Heaven, go down! 

He dies not, 'tis we that shall die! 

Each to his town 

And be comforted; 

Each to his gray, gray town 

And his bed; 

But not I! 

Not I, who faint and fall. 

Returning no more at all. 

On the leaves of the moon the stain 

Of the broken vein, — 

It is red! 
Never again, 

The hounds and the hunters' tune; 
It is red on the paths of the moon! 



[6] 



THE SON 

(He Complains of Dying too Soon.) 

Oh, mother, it is hard to die 
When a man is twenty-one, 
A good team hoofing in the stalls, 

And half the ploughing done; 
And meadow acres of our own, 
All steaming in the sun! 

Ah, weary, weary, be at peace. 
Lie still, my bonnie son. 

Oh, mother, mother — hard to die — 

And it this time of year! 
When little leaves are coming out 

And hopeful buds are here. . . . 
And no maid ever leaned on me. 
Nor any called me, "Dear!" 
'Tis Jesu Christus calling thee : 
His words are kind and clear. 

Oh, in the village, once, a maid. . . . 

Her corsage was untied. . . . 
A little button had gone wrong: 

I saw two doves inside! 
But once to hold them in my hand — 

[7] 



Those doves — before I died! 

Think on the Dove of God, my son. 
His wings are soft and wide. 

And once, oh mother, in the grass, 

Beneath the apple trees. 
There was a careless maid asleep — 

I saw two silken knees: 
I dreamed my waist was girdled round 
With silken charities. 

Oh, little son, how can you speak 
Such wild, wild words as these! 

And, mother, I have rolled in bed 

Until the dawn of light, 
With heart a-bursting in my side 
For dreams of strange delight — 
Of something lily pale and soft 
That kept me warm at night. 
Oh, weary, weary, be at peace. 
The angels' wings are white. 

You always gave me good, wool hose, 

And plenty of ale and bread, 
But mother, mother, you never gave 

A woman in my bed! 
And so, until the crack of doom, 
I'll sleep cold, now I'm dead! 
Oh, little son, would I had died 
Ere ever these words you said! 
(Oh, Jesu Christus, crucified!) 

[8] 



THE SEVEN FAREWELLS 

The birds were crying in the ways, 

The cuciwoo and the doves, 
When I took seven summer days 

To farewell my seven loves. 

And first, I took a long, long day 

To gaze and say goodbye, 
And slowly turn my soul away 

From the wonder of the Eye. 

Another deep day was used up 

Upon the most caressed; 
I leaned and whispered to the Cup — 

I parted with the Breast. 

And next, from when the sun did rise, 

Until the evening fell, 
I looked, and never turned my eyes. 

But bade the Lip farewell. 

The Lip that spoke as singing birds 

Lived in its crimson door — 
The Lip, the honied home of words. 

It smiled and spoke no more. 

[9] 



Then, till a long day's dripping sands 
The glass had all run through, 

I held the P'eet in my two hands 
And bade the Feet adieu. 

Then I entreated of my heart 

If counselling there be 
Of that strange alabaster art, 

How to farewell the Knee. 

That white impossible was done : 

But, unaccomplished now. 
Although I strove from sun to sun 

To finish with thy Thou. 

This nameless Thou with sealed eye 

It leaned across the day. 
And when I tried to say goodbye 

It turned my tongue to clay. 



[10] 



THE WIND ALONG THE LEAVES 

In the valley restless, 
Where the birds are nestless, 
All my hearts are shaking 
Like blown water quaking, 
For the wind along the leaves has made me mad. 

Where my selves are walking 
They wake me with their talking. 
Where the dark is riding 
There is something hiding. 
And the wind along the leaves has made me mad. 

The river never tarries 
For dread of what she carries; 
The low ones who go creeping 
In the wood are weeping, 
And the wind along the leaves has made me mad. 

There are too many faces 
In the darkling places. 
Where the wet roots glisten 
Too many lean and listen. 
And the wind along the leaves has made me mad. 

[II] 



There is too much meaning 
Where the trees are leaning, 
And the rocks conferring 
Make a fearful stirring; 
The wind along the leaves has made me mad 



[12] 



ZANZOS 

Oh, it's down the world to Zanzos, 
Down the world with lovers twain, 

But it's killed with other kisses 
That I come back again. 

For they left me there to follow 
, Foam-flowers fair and sad, 
And they left me there in Zanzos, 
In Zanzos to go mad. 

For affairs are strange in Zanzos, 
Such a state of things prevails. 

That you cannot tell the women 
From the nightingales. 

So as I came back from Zanzos 

With the gulls that wheeled and whirled, 
I was singing-sick with Zanzos, 
And went crying up the world. 

The people wondered much to see 
My phosphorescent shine, 

['3] 



And said they'd never met before 
Such an antic face as mine. 

They said that they had never met 

A woman quite so fair, 
Who made such lisping with her lips, 
As if she kissed the air. 

The wharfman asked where I was born, 

I waved to all the tides — 
And whither I was journeying, 

I leaned against their sides — 

And if I carried treasure, 
I waved to all the ships. 
They searched a night, they searched a day. 
But did not search my lips. 

I blindly smiled, my feet were wild, 
My lips were quaint and curled, 

For as I came back from Zanzos, 
I went reeling up the world. 



[14] 



THE DOOM-BRIDE 

What is it there, coming over the lonely, 

The long heath-side? 
Is it the shake of the alder-trees only. 

Where the winds ride? 
Or is it the walk of the Strangers that never 

Can tell or turn? 
Or is it the bog-mist that carries forever 
The dead fairy children that cannot be buried 

In fen, or fern. 
The little dead Funs that are harried and hurried 
For fear of wild saints that have blessed the land 
direly, 

Sealing the ground. 
For vain, little fay-graves too holy entirely. 

Is it a sound? 
Or is it a sleep, or a sorrow that glimmers. 

Beginning its plain? 
Or the coat of a poor, needy ghost there, that 
shimmers, 

Ragged as rain? 
Or is it the leaves that are frightened at Goers 

That no leaf sees? 

[15] 



Or the old king that paces out, when the night 
lowers, 
Dead, at his ease? 

Then, what is it there, coming over the dreary, 

The dread heath-side? 
There is no world-woman so wild or so weary. 

Where the winds ride! 
The Doom-bride the fierce priest of Kerry cursed 
on me 

For my sin and grief! 
'Tis the walk of the Doom-bride that's down and 
upon me! 

Farewell, Mary Keefe! 



[i6] 



MY DARKNESS 

Oh come, my darkness! 

There has been too much of light, 

Too much of heaping noon. 

Give me the empty night! 

And let there be 

No ministration of the moon, 

Nor gold along the sea. 

Let no leaf 

Turn argent, and no tree 

Be quickened into silver grief: 

Fold up the arduous bright; 

Beat down and still 

The howling of the kennelled will 

And hungry hounds of sight! 

Oh come my darkness! 



[17] 



THE FLYING DEAD 

The wind was full of withered leaves, 

The golden and the red ; 
They cried to one who hid his eyes, 

"Follow the flying dead. 

Come loose your soul from off the bough 
Where it doth hang and sigh. 

And give it to the long-maned wind 
And see your dead soul fly. 

And loose your heart from off the stem 
Where it doth pulse and pale. 

And on the sea of running air 
Let your dead heart sail. 

For only the dead are travellers," 
The wild leaves sang and said. 

''Follow, follow, follow. 
Follow the flying dead!" 



[i8] 



THE HIGH HOUSE 



I built a hundred houses, 

I built them one by one; 
But all my pretty houses 

Were too small when they were done: 

But all my little houses 

Leaned upon my head, 
And all their little roof-beams 

Crowded me in bed. 

And then I said, I'll build a house, 
A house both wide and high, 

A house that will be fitting 
For as tall a man as I. 

I build you high, I build you wide, 
The buttresses along your side, 
Bull-shouldered, crouched against my prize 
And braced your bulk with burly thighs. 

I heaped you high with many a tower 
And piled your parapets with power. 
Your ramparts rode the world like lords, 
Your turrets hurt the sun like swords. 

[19] 



And there were halls as large as France, 
And fifty where a man might dance, 
A hundred more for love and sleep : 
The tallest, where a man could weep. 

But houses that are built too high 

Have souls as high again. 
And houses that hob-nob the sky 

Turn from the tallest men. 

So, when my house was capped and done. 

And I would in and bide, 
My house, you leaned against the sun, 

And heavily you sighed. 

Then, with a mighty groan you reared 

Your helmet like a war, 
And, as your mighty tears appeared, 

You shut your mighty door. 



[20] 



ESTABLISHED 

I made a house of houselessness, 

A garden of your going: 
And seven trees of seven w^ounds 

You gave me, all unknowing: 
I made a feast of golden grief 

That you so lordly left me, 
I made a bed of all the smiles 

Whereof your lip bereft me: 
I made a sun of your delay. 

Your daily loss, his setting: 
I made a wall of all your words 

And a lock of your forgetting. 



[21] 



A DREAM OF SAPPHO 

She slowly came, I knew her by the sign, 
And fair she was, but far more strange than fair. 

I knew her by the roses in her hair, 

Pierian, and she saluted mine, 
Lifting her pale hand in that gesture high 
The deathless use to those that cannot die. 

(She bore a purple napkin for her lap; 
Her sandal had a fair-wrought Lydian 
strap.) 

She touched my lyre and listened — ^while she 
seemed 
As one dimmed in some doubtful dream re- 
dreamed; 
Then, ah, the voice she from those lips released, 

All birds and bees and singing in a sigh — 
''Once, with a thing like this — " she said, and 
ceased. 

And then, 

That flowery fluting fell again; 

[22] 



"I passed, as some far, careless queen doth pass, 
While, gem by gem, her broken necklace 
streams: 

Perhaps one follows, finding fearful gleams. 
Long after in the pale, pale grass." 

I said, "None with more living lives 
Than those fierce fugitives!" 

"But I am dead," she said, "the violet-twined 
Is dead with that which never man can find." 

"Rubies enough," I weeping said. 
And red to broider all thy bed!" 

Then she, with queenhood most inefifable, 
Put by her golden throat's bereaven swell: 

"Stand up, O friend," she said, "stand face to face, 
And of thy hidden eyes unveil the grace!" 

Then with what looks we leaned and gazed long 
while! 
Drunkard meets wreathed drunkard with that 
smile! 
And what full-lyred beaker brimmed up, 
With wet lips meeting on the honied cup! 
And as sweet drunkards, reeling, spill 
The crested waves of cups they fill. 
With lovely laughs, inside the purple vest, 
So we with laughter, staggered breast to breast. 

[23] 



I wake, the book drops from my dreaming hand, 
As now thy palm august falls out of mine. 

Oh, where is that strong singing! Where the 
wine! 
Prevailing lip! And leafy brow of thine! 

Only the long sea and the Lesbian strand ! 

Art thou but sand that blows with trodden sand? 
Where is thy burning hand. . . . 



[24] 



THE MUSE IN THE DOOR 

I do not know your name, 

Nor your fate. 
You come as you came before. 

You are late, 
But you and mine are the same. 
Submitted to me, once more! 

You carry the sign — 
You are late. 

But mine! 

You are mine, as you were before! 

For you and mine are the same. 
You are lame. 

You pause in the door. 
With desire and danger and doubt. 
You detach from the wind without — 
You are mine, as you were before. 
You are slow for pity and pride. 

Ah, you are lame, but mine! 
You carry the sign — 
The vultures in your side! 

You are he whom the beaks defile. 
You are faint from the walls you broke. 

[25] 



You smile. 

You are bright and bereft, 
You are heavy with theft! 
There is fire in your cloak! 
Master of stealth! You are he! 

Mine to compel or refuse! 
And you are released to me 
As Barabbas was loosed to the Jews! 



[26] 



POET TO POET 

To my Singing Brother, C. G. O W. 

Since you are with me now, my Bird, 

I sing alone no more, 
We go with many a silver word 

Where we have wept before. 

We go with many a silver sound. 
Where once we went so still. 

We take the forest for a hound. 
And chase the bounding hill. 

We chase the bee where honey drips, 

We chase the chanting morn, 
We put the forest to our lips 
And blow it like a horn. 

We shake the forest like a flag. 

Like banners burning red. 
Our words are running with the stag — 
With leaves the wind has sped. 

Our words are running with the hare 
The hunters never find, 

[27] 



Whose feet are like the purple air 
That leaves the pack behind. 

But ah, no hunter ever heard 

Such cries as we let out, 
Since you are with me now, my Bird, 

With echoes leagued about. 

The echoes all take hands and dance 

When you set up your song; 
The hairy hiders peep and prance 

And love and listen long. 

The hairy hiders weep their fill 

O'er singing's aftermath, 
To find the wine-red words you spill 

Along the leafy path. 

And wine-red words leap up and sing. 
And high boughs sing for pain. 

While thrushes wait and hush their wing. 
And rivers hush the rain. 

And Life it sings of Death deferred. 

And Death sings lustily. 
Since you are with me now, my Bird, 

As winds are with the tree I 



[28] 



SALE 

"Sell all and follow me," you said. 

I sold my wine. I sold my bread. 

I sold my horses and my bed. 

I sold my kings, I sold my crowns. 

And then, I wept and sold my clowns. 

I sold my armies and my state, 

I sold my folly and my fate. 

I sold my safety and my sUn, 

I sold my sorrows, one by one. 

I sold the demons from my heart. 

And saw my lovely fiends depart. 

I sold my scarlet, sold my lords, 
My altars, engines, scutcheons, swords, 
My ships, my heroes, tower and town. 
My roads, my ramparts, my renown. 
I sold my sea, I sold my land, 
I took my brave god by the hand, 
I took my god and cloaked his face 
And sold him in the market place. 

Now, it is finished, and I wait. 
Robbed and robust, without your gate, 

[29] 



You cry, ''My beggar!" We embrace. 
The golden tears run down your face. 
The golden tears they ray and run ; 
"I asked too much!" you weep undone. 
You stream and stream with piteous gold 
On me, the bright, the bare, the bold. 



[30] 



THE MASTER OF POETS 

From ihe deep the call of the Name! 

I flew from the one that came, 

The one that cried as he ran, 

And calling on "Pan, Pan, Pan!" 

For leafy succour, I fled. 

But ever onward he sped 

With lips that dripped from the vine 

And purple splashed knees 

And a singing sound of trees 

And looks that were wild with wine. 

And ever beside him sprang, 

Bright with the striped skin. 

Strange shapes that sighed and sang 

With golden din; 

And lions with eyes of sard 

And leopards and leapers whose thighs 

Gave the goatling wide surprise: 

While a smell of nameless nard, 

With musk of roses and roots, 

Fell from the runner that came 

With a lyre in flame 

And a flooding fury of flutes. 

[31] 



He came as the falcon flies, 

Stretched beak and windy wings; 

I, falling as one that dies, 

Heard the Name that sweeps like a sword. 

And a voice of thunderous things 

That cried, "lacchus, Lord I 

lacchus, lacchus, lacchus," 

Till the winds and the waves were dumb. 

"Bromius! Master and Lover! 

The curled Theban has comel 

O, you that have leaves for cover, 

Beat breasts with the love that is fear! 

Hide from the Lovely, the Lover! 

Dion, the Raging, is here!" 

Then a murmur, that murmured as sweet 
As lutes in far places that fade: 
And I heard his crystal feet 
That stole to my side and stayed. 
And his call was the sound of the sea, 
The 'plaining of rivers in rain. 
The moan of all birds there be 
That make singing in their pain. 

I cried where I lay in the fern, 

"O, you who are crushed as the grape. 

Bid me not turn! 

Let me see not your terrible shape! 

O call not me but another! 

Theban, to look is to burn 

[32] 



And go the way of your mother! 
Bid me not turn!" 

He ceased, as Philomel 

Sinks fainting into the night, 

With sighing sob remote. 

Or, as a broken bell : 

So ceased the viol-ing flight 

Of thrushes in his throat. 

But me the silence smote. 

I looked as he who fears, 

Turning, reluctant, for sight. . . . 

I saw the red god white ! 

I saw his silver tears! 

"My Lord, have I dreamed, or slept. 
It seemed you were one that leapt 
With lovely leapings and cries 
And laughs in your lordly eyes 
And heels of a dance-adept! 
I could have laughed and dared 
To embrace your side, all bared. 
Frisk with your mighty knees. 
And prank my fill and please 
Me in coigns for kisses where 
Deft sunbeams never dare. 
Though they sigh 
At the robe that blows awry. 
I could have curled and clung 
To so laughing a god and young, 

[33] 



Playing with your most fair 
And deep, depending hair." 
He said, "Give me your tongue 
For my despair." 



[34] 



THERE WHERE THE NIGHT WAS 
TALL I LIFTED YOU 

To Kallista 

There where the night was tall, I lifted you, 
Tail as the night, and deep as depthless deep: 

I based you on the under dark and drew 
The upper dark about your lips that sigh. 

And hid with height your towering eyes that weep 
As weep incessantly the sootheless seas 
With grief of largeness ever unredressed; 

Like some poor Titan, leaning on the sky 

That finds no mighty bed to give him ease. 
Nor any monster's breast. 



[35] 



I DREAMED YOU WEPT 

To Kallista 

I dreamed you wept upon me in a dream; 
Your tears were strange — they ran a ruddy 
stream. 

Then passion made me strong, I did unbind 
The sea to wash that stream incarnadined; 

And where the winds were fastened in the skies, 
Untied their silken scarves to staunch your eyes. 

I drove the shouldering mountains in a ring 

Like herds of bison bulls, rude bellowing, 
That stoop their maned heads, as at the brink 

Of some deep river where they roar and drink; 
So at your rivering eyes, each hunch-back king 

Abased his boughs with spilling nests of spring: 
Like plumes the iron pinetrees leaned about. 

The eagles doffed the sun from bending crests, 
And all the horny innocents looked out 

From ferny flanks to wonder at your breasts. 

You would not look into one feathered bed, 

[36] 



y 



Nor stroke the mighty vassals that I led, 
But turned away your lustrous eyes that bled. 

I drove you deserts in a caravan 

With heaped camel and Mahomedan; 

I brought you peaks with snowy hats that shone, 
And caverns where dark waters made their 



And poets' tongues that quivered as I came. 
And Night that paced like a purple dame. 

And tender younglings, leopards, lambs and doves 
And peacocks, and the lusty boy that loves. 

I brought you lions; and a thousand years: 
I bore you valleys full of rose and rain, 

And desperate songs to ease you of your tears; 
But still your flowery mouth it did complain. 

Then passion made me tall, I heaved me 
Against the sky and shook it like a tree. 

The stars flew out like birds with chirping tunes. 
And from their boughs I loosened all the moons: 

The moons they fell like apples in your lap 
And told your knees their silverine mishap; 

Your silver knees were weary of the weight. 
Your lap lamented of its moony state. 

And from the fallen fruitage of the skies 

You hid the beauteous bleeding of your eyes. 

[37] 



FORGOTTEN PATRICK 

'Ah, Forgotten Patrick, it is long now, 
,'It is long and long now, since we left you. 
Where you walked, Forgotten Patrick, in the wild 

grass. 
With us beside you, noticing your dark hair 
And the little funny corners of your smiling. 

Who'd 'av' thought that we could do without you, 
And do so well without you, in the main, too. 
Without you and your whimsy ways and talking! 
(You, the plain and quiet fellow 'neath the wild 
grass!) 

But it's better to forget you and be easy, 
Than be sitting half the needy night and staring 
Out the way you went along the leaning wild grass. 
And you. Forgotten Patrick, never looking. 



[38] 



TEARS 

For there was never rain enough, 
Rain enough, rain enough, before, 

To put out the fire, put out the fire 
In the burning core! 

And now, that there is rain enough, 
Rain enough, rain enough and more. 

Who died by fire dies by rain 
Behind the drowning door! 



[39] 



THE FAIRY HUSBAND 

All in the shady 

Wood I met a lady 
Who sighed full sore. 

I begged the reason 
For grief in singing season, 
But ever, more and more. 

The fair 
Wept in her hair 
And made a lovely wail. 

She said "I am so pale, 

And I complain of wings, 
I am so pale for love of fairy things! 

I had a pretty husband, 

I had a fairy husband, 

I had a wingy husband, 
But he went away. 

The wind it thieved me, 

The Moon bereaved me. 
They stole my pretty husband for their 

play! 
Before, at each dew-falling, 
He would make owl-calling, 

[40] 



While some flower, shaking 

O'er his nest, 
Proved he would be waking 

From his winking rest. 
And I, wan with wonder, 
Found him, in under. 

By his crimson vest; 

By his mooney eyes, 

By his silver thighs. 
And his wings of the purple dragon flies. 

Wings, wings! 
I am so pale for love of fairy things! 

When, in the morning, 

My mother came to my adorning, 

She would stare 
At fairy trinkets in my hair; 

And cry surprise 
At strangeness in my eyes. 

My father would be talking 

Of my soft walking, 
For feet are faint that follow fays by night; 

And 'tis said 
That elf-wives cheeks are white. 

I could not spin my thread. 
So slow my hands for weight of elfin rings. 

But, ah, my heart was red! 
So pale at last for love of fairy things! 

Me he decked with prinking care. 
He, the wild tameless; 
[4'] 



And brought me playthings, fierce and fair, 

That must be nameless. 
With moon-shoes for mine ease 

So fine and flimsy. 
And magic cloaks to please 

That soul of whimsy. 

My bed. 
It had a cobweb spread 
Woven all with pretties; 
And when he put me in, 
He made a lovely din 

Of elfin ditties. 
Far! It is far where now he sings, 
And I am pale for love of fairy things! 

I had a pretty husband, 
I had a fairy husband, 
I had a wingy husband, 

But he went away: 
The wind it thieved me. 
The moon bereaved me. 

They stole my pretty husband for their 
play." 



[42] 



THE OWL 

The Owl! 
Ah, the gray, gray owl! 

When I was sighing, 

Near unto dying. 
It was the owl that called me where I bled. 

To hark, I ceased me. 

The fiends released me. 
It is the owl that putteth men to bed. 

The owl! 
Ah, the darkling owl! 

If he speak to thee, 

He will undo thee. 
For all is naught save going where he led, 

All naught but flying 

Unto that crying; 
And 'tis the owl that putteth men to bed. 

The owl! 
Ah, the hiding owl! 

Why are men weeping 

Who might be sleeping? 
The thrall of sleep need never woo nor wed ; 

[43] 



The steeds he rides are 
More bright than brides are, 
And 'tis the owl that putteth men to bed. 

The owl! 
Ah, the horny owl! 

Who, that doth love thee 

Would put above thee 
Grecian Philomel who wounds the dead? 

It is her fashion 

To break souls with passion, 
'But 'tis the owl that putteth men to bed. 

The owl! 
Ah, the crying owl! 

Hark, o'er the meadow, 

The calling shadow! 
And like a shade my soul to him hath fled. 

Body lie starkly! 

Soul riding darkly! 
All with the owl that putteth men to bed! 



[44] 



OWL SINISTER 

Ah, can you never still, 
Unhealable complainer of the wounded will? 
You Groan-in-the-dark, 
You sobber of no shape. 
And strong negation of the lark! 
You wrong-recounter of no words! 

Ape 
Of lovely birds, 
And hunchback of the singing breed! 
You void! You, irremediable Need, 

Make nothing of desire. 
With long, cold, crying famine you put out the fire, 

And esperances of the day rescind. 
Eater of shadows! Ghoul and gullet of the wind! 



[45] 



THE SILENT HOUND 

Down, my hound! 

I am the stag, 
And you the Mouth. 
There is no sound. 
No burst of baying 
In this dumb, intentioned pressure toward the 
crag: 
No howl of slaying, 
No bleat of mine 
From wild tongue carved in drouth. 
No sound! 
No red on the road for a sign; 
Only our violence, still 
As carnage seen in sleep. 

Fierce with will. 
And your leap 
For your shuddering goal. 
The throat of the desecrate — 
I, the hurrying soul, 
You, the fate! 

No sigh, no sound! 
We run! 

[46] 



We are not two, but one; 
For you hang to my side. 

You ride! 

My hound! 



[47] 



SHE WROTE IT 

To Kallista 

She wrote, ''only your own words 

could tell you how I am loving you. 

She wrote it, "Only your own words." 
She, who called like bulls and birds, 
She, who throbbed a thrushes throat 
And bayed the wind back as he cried, 
She, who moaned the pigeon's note 
And shook the pinetree when she sighed : 
Mistress of all words and wails. 
Giving tongue with nightingales! 

She, whose pea-cock coloured cries 
Woke the dead man in his bed. 
And fooled him back from Paradise, 
With his pale heart turned to red: 
She, the horn that warriors led, 
Clamour of the larks that rise, 
And viol of the swan that dies! 

She wrote it! She, my lyric you! 
You beat of drum, you lull of lute! 

[48] 



You voice of cataract and dew, 

You verse, you violin, you flute! 

You roar! You sound of loves that sue! 

Tongue of the world, who pierce and coo! 



[49] 



WHERE THERE IS NO LARK 

Where there is no lark, 
And the Great Couch is spread, 
Death stirring on his pillow in the dark. 

Makes drowsy sounds of kissing in the dark. 
And lifting up a shadow-wreathed head, 

Calls like a sleepy lover, "come to bed." 



[so] 



AS I WENT BY 

As I went by, 

An old man with a curded eye, 

Said : "Much as you can laugh and kiss, 

You will be like this." 
And I did not believe him, 
But made haste to leave him. 
Laughing all the way. 

Yet, another day. 

He made the self-same say. 

For my laughter grieved him. 
And I believed him! 

Then I shook 

Like a willow in a brook. 

Like the ox from the goad, 

Like the slave beneath the load, 

Like the reed under rain. 

And the sick man in pain. 

And the hind before the hound, 

And the new corpse in the ground! 



[51] 



THE EAGLE HUNTER 



I said: I will go down, 

Save me from hurts of height, 

Wounds of renown, 
The spurning spears of light 
And scorn of the gigantic flight. 

I will desist, 
Give up the great antagonist; 

I will go hence 
From this most dire magnificence 

And regal state 
Of battle desperate; 

Resign 
The hunt of eagles to the fine 
And fierce essay, the dare-and-do 
Of taller men and new. 

I will restore 
Me to the valley's eve and noon, 
And crack my heart no more, 
But hide, in poor delight 

Of harmless things, 
From haunt of height 
And windy width of wings. 

[52] 



Let fly the towering prey, 
Unwieldy as the moon! 
I will go down and stay, 
Be succoured by disgrace, 

Too mean for high mishap. 
Be safe and low my chase. 
No Titan in my trap 
With conquered terror's mighty eye, 

And that great sigh 
That makes the hunter pale! 

Ah, let no sun-insulting sail 
Of pinions tempt me now, 

From my low vow. 
Nor giant shapes go by 
Between me and the sky! 



[S3l 



TWO PORTRAITS 



He was so fine with youth, he seemed at feast: 
His unborn honours phantomed up with wings, 

Like spears of dawn, before suns climb the east, 
With triumph of unconsummated things. 

II 

Then you came, kingly, decked in all your dead 
And panoplied with trophies of disgrace, 

Fulfilment of defeat to crown your head, 
And all your perfect follies in your face. 



[54] 



THE FOUR GOATS 

There are four goats upon the hill, 

There might have been but three; 
One for Carnarvon, you and me, 
Each with his long, long eye, and still, 
There are four goats upon the hill. 

And one is neither yours nor mine: 

There might have been a face 
Like his in some far, other place. 
His horn is like a wreathed vine. 
And he is neither yours nor mine. 



[55] 



THE TWO BONNIE LORDS 

There were two bonnie lords 

And they rode and they rode, 
There were two bonnie lords 
And they rode! 

There were two bonnie lords 

And they rode wide and weel, 
Edward of Carnarvon 
And Edward O'Neill. 

There were two bonnie lords 

And they rode hound to heel; 
One was a great Earl 
And one chief of the Neill. 

The two Edwards they were 

And one was a prince; 
The other was fairer 
Than any man since. 

The other was so fair 

That men thought him a dame, 
And Carnarvon, the bard, 
Made a song of his name, 
[S6] 



And the bard was a king 

With an eye like the sea, 
And wherever he went 
He sang lustily. 

And wherever he went, 

And wherever he'd wend, 
He only thought the more 
Of his bonnie friend. 

There were two bonnie lords. 

And they rode wide and well, 
Across the bridge of heaven 
And the parapets of hell. 

And they rode and they rode. 
And when they came away. 
It was strange spoil they carried 
Across the night and day. 

It was strange spoil they carried 

To deck out a queen, 
And make the lady golden 
That hung their breasts between. 

There were two bonnie lords 

And they rode and they rode, 
There were two bonnie lords 
And they rode! 

[57] 



THE BEGINNING AND THE 
FULL OF LOVE 

Ah, then, those angels in the wingy eyes, 
Kinder than little stars that come not near 
For fear of burning; silvery acolytes, 
Swinging far, careful censors with averted face. 
Too far to stir the garment, the untroubled hair- 
White garment hardly trembled with a sigh. . . 

Now, now, the blood-red pallium's broidered 

weight, 
Wild, shaken banner of the onslaughting heart, 
The heavy woof of flaming chains. 
And wars of rubies! 
The last fierce ornament of the full-robed love! 



[58] 



THE GOING 

He told the stones the time was spent, 

He told the little stair, 
And every gentle ornament 

The housewife dusts with care. 

He told the fire and chimney-place, 

Confided to the mouse, 
And quickly covering his face. 

He wept and told the house. 

He cried it to the little bed, 

He breathed it to the bee, 
He told the roses white and red. 

But he could not tell the tree. 



[59] 



THE LOVELY GOER 

Who has slain the town? 
Who slew the flutes in going? 
Who left the wine un-flowing, 
And weather-cocks un-crowing, 
Where smiles are lost in snowing, 

Smiles of king and clown? 
The dance it dims and dozes, 
The song it fails and closes. 
There is rain upon the roses 

And the flags are down. 
Who left the rose un-glowing? 
Who slew the flutes in going? 

Who has slain the town? 



[60] 



THE CRYING HEARTS 

I sing the hearts that all night long 

Were broken on my breast, 
Whose crying was as sweet as song, 

Accursed and caressed; 
Whose moan was sweet as murdered birds 
That die with pretty 'plaining words. 

(My one, my two, my two in one. 
Hiding from the moon and sun!) 

I put my bleating hearts to bed 

And folded back the day, 
My pretty horned hearts that bled, 

I hid their wounds away: 
And like two rivers, hid with leaves, 
They sang as water sings and grieves. 

(My two, my one, my one in two, 
Hiding from the dark and dew!) 

Of river leaves that dip and drown 

I made them covers deep ; 
My breast that staggered up and down, 

It rocked my hearts to sleep; 
[6i] 



And like three rivers running strong, 
They shook the leaves the whole night 
long. 
(My one, my two, my two in three, 
Hiding from all things that be!) 



[62] 



DEATH SHALL NOT EASE ME OF YOU 

To Kallista 

Death shall not ease me of you, 

No, nor yet 

That place where men go to forget: 

That curious place 

Where beds are made. 

It shall not ease me of your face. 

Nor I, in darkness laid. 

Be ere untied 

From the vine of your persisting side. 

Nor flowers of your dissuadeless breast. 

Nor rest 

From wonder. Though I drew 

The earthy cover all about 

To succour me from you 

I shall not keep you out. 

Your might 

Shall circumvent the night: 
While you still press 
Upon me obdurate loveliness: 
And in your princely fashion 

[63] 



Rend my death 

With absolute compassion. 

I can not save you Love, 

From me, relieve my Dove 

Of hovering; 

Nor loose your love-arrested wing, 

Nor release in any wise 

The hold of our tenacious eyes; 

But your divine shall tremble me 

And break my dead heart endlessly. 

Death shall not ease me of you, 

No, nor yet. 

That place where men go to forget. 



[64l 



THE DELIGHT 

I said, I have been long enough away 
From my delight! 
I will arise and go before the day 

Has beggared princely night. 
I shall go as waters go 
With silver-footed flow 
The moon doth lift and light. 
I said I have been long enough away 
From my delight. 
What was the voice that answered in a tune 
A ditty faint as fluting in the moon? 

"Who can find a fallen star, 
Pearly prey of night? 
Who knows where lips of lovers are 
When their bones are white? 

What red can run in dead men's veins, 
Who set the snow a-fire? 
Or catch, by foam of vanished manes. 
Horses of desire? 

The wave retreated, who can stay — 
The unremembered tune — 

[6s] 



Or save for silver in the day 
Colour of the moon? 

Who shall engreen a w^inter's leaf, 
Withered in the cold? 
Or hold the fury of his grief, 
When his grief is old? 

The honey cup is full of sand 
That blows with windy sound. 
Who can name what viewless hand 
Spilled me on the ground?" 

What was the voice that answered in a tune, 
A ditty faint as fluting in the moon? 



[66] 



FAUN-TAKEN 

Who was it then that lately took me in the wood? 
And was it I that lay twice seven nights on 
leaves, 
With musky hair against my side! 
That cruel hair that kept me kindly from the 
cold! 
Gold, gold! 
Of yellow eyes that glance and hide! 
Am I the maddened one that goes — and grieves 
For lack of laughter laughing till I died? 

Oh, drouth of grapey laughter, dearth and 
drouth! 
Twice seven days are but a blurring ring 
That circles round the corner of a mouth! 
Oh, wide, wide mouths that bellow so, or 
fling 
That fluting up to birds like spurted 
wine! 
But, ah, no more, those sounds without 
a name — 
No more that ambiguous grace of god 
and ape, 

[67] 



Where strange feet dance upon the 

dripping grape — 

Those feet one must not see — that 

wounded mine! 

Let me but once look back again and pass. 

Once only see him again — and groan and go — 

The lips that laugh in the grass — 
That kiss in a way one must not know! 
The lips that cling the mouths of pipes and suck 
The roots of frightened flowers too pale to 
pluck; 
The curls that vine o'er what one must not see — 

Those horney hiders that so gored me! 
Then, run and run— again to the hearths, the roofs! 
But close behind, — the pipes, the pipes, — the 
hoofs! 



[68] 



MEA CULPA 

The night was living, past belief, 
The lake was furtive as a thief: 
The moon was wading to the knee, 
And I was as bad as bad could be. 

I was more living than the night, 

I made the lilies drown for fright: 

I was more furtive than the lake, 

I hardly made the water shake. 

I lurked, I listened, — touched, — and soon, 

I waded deeper than the moon. 



[69] 



THEY SPREAD THE PLANETS 
OUT FOR ME 

Composed in Sleep to Kallista 

They spread the planets out for me, 
They made the deep so fine. 

I looked to East, I looked to West, 
To choose a gaud for mine. 

I took a moon, I took a star, 

I took your silver face: 
But at your eyes the worlds went out. 

And left an empty place. 

And at your eyes the day grew pale. 

The night put up his pelf. 
The sun shut out his jewel-bags. 

And sighed and slew himself. 

And at your lips the god leaned out 
And groaned with golden care: 

His golden steps went staggering 
All down his golden stair. 

[70] 



THE TRAPPER OF STARS 

The trapper of stars went out alone 

On the track of his running prey, 

And his eyes were the eyes of his prize that 

shone 
And his look illumed the way. 
But anon, he sighed, and anon, he said, 
"The trapping of stars is a lonely trade. 
Though the golden game be won! 
Ah, happy the hunters that hunt in the sun. 
When the coloured fields are gay! 
The birds of the night have a sorrowful say, 
And the dreads of the dark bestride me. 
I would I could hunt my stars by day 
With a lover that ran beside me." 



[71] 



THE THREE DEAD TONGUES 

And they were dead, three golden tongues, 

All in their winding sheets: 
Three lovers came unto their lips, 

Enquiring for their sweets. 

"And who have slain our golden tongues!" 

The weeping lovers cried. 
"Six leaden ears have murthered us. 

And harried till we died. 

"And long the tunes like hurted birds 

Will peak and pine for song, 
And flocks of bonnie, bonnie words. 

They will be waiting long. 

"They will be waiting poor as maids 

Whose lemans never come. 
And dead babes rocking on their knees. 

Now we are dead and dumb." 

"Ah, nay, ah nay," the lovers cried, 

And kissed the pretty dead. 
And soon each golden tongue that died 

Was dancing in his bed. 

[72] 



THE SAVANT 

Erudite of anguish, 
Seer 

Of grief, 

Master of no-relief; 

Savant of sorrow, 

Philosopher of fear; 

Doctor of dereliction. 

Collegian of disdain, 
Cloaked in honours of despair, 

Capped with care: 

Universitor of pain. 
The learned of the dark. 

Awarded, aware. 
You might be too proud 

Of scholarship so bright, 
The achieved profession of the night; 
If you were not, by accident. 

The uninstructed of delight. 
(Ah, my poor! Adept of iron that sears! 
Academician of slow tears!) 
If you were not, for all of this 

Renown, and most illustrious employ, 
The innocent of bliss. 

The barbarian of joy. 

[73] 



"I LEAVE YOU NOW WITH YOUR 
DELICIOUS EYES" 

Then I am dead with my delicious eyes. 
Tell all who come, 
Tell him who knocks and cries, 

Who melts, who moves. 
Who woos with truth and lies: 
And him who makes, 

Who weaves both wild and wise: 

Who sings, who soothes: 
And him, the rude surprise: 
And him who waits 

With obdurate surmise: 
And him, the golden one 
Who faints and flies. 
Tell verse and viol. 

Savants, swords and sighs, 
The stride, the deed. 
The splendour of replies: 

All heavy hopes. 
Designs that surge and rise, 

And stalwart ghosts 
That violate the skies. 

[74] 



And tell your heart 

That neither lives nor dies, 
That I am dead with my delicious eyes. 



[75] 



BLACK POET TO SILVER POET 

Your winged singing drops, in plumed array, 
Its birds that feather, fluting, down the day, 
And lift to leafy loves. 
Their high and sweet incessant silver say: 
Birds, deepening at dusk to nightingales. 
That beat the doors of dark with soft assails, 
And tender tunes the plaintive moon ap- 
proves. . . . 

But, when the gray sea of my silence moves, 
The wounded waves with sluggard rollings part 
To let out some dis-fathomed monster's head 
With blind and streaming eyes: So from his bed. 
Heaves up my heavy art. 



[76] 



WHOM SINGEST THOU? 

Thou saidst, 

"Whom singest thou with that ambiguous lyre? 
Dost thou sing me, or dost thou ising the 
lyre?" 
I smiled and sang: 
"I sing the embraceless spouse: 

Perhaps I sing thy hundred thousand thous." 
I smiled and sang, till, leaning in surprise, 
I saw the tears well in thy haughty eyes. 



[77] 



SPLENDOUR 

He said, ''How can I meet your splendour, 
In this magnificence of my losses, 
Bankruptcy of youth, 
Delinquency in beauty?" 
But you, in strong delight, 
Ran, ran and fell upon him. 
Crying out, "O Splendour!" 



[78] 



SOME DISHONOURED GARDEN 

Some dishonoured garden be my place: 

Where the savage grass, 
Shaggy son of vagabond disgrace, 

Sighs his rude "Alas," 
Over princely flowers all discrowned, 

Poverties embracing on the ground; 
Bankrupt lovers hiding breasted heads 

In their beggared beds. 

Hide the wronged laughter of the fool 

In this leafy wrong: 
Drown with petals in the pallid pool 

My Icarian song. 
Ragged roses and a tattered vine, 

Lean renown and broken bread be mine 
Since thy king's fare hath so wasted me, 

And I starve on thee. 



[79] 



AGAMMEMNON 

More bold thou art 
Than that Achaean king, the Trojan's dread, 
Who took the crying maid of Troy to bed ; 
With iron breast held down that haunted 
heart. 
Beneath his shoulder bent that burning 
head. 



[80] 



HIS STRANGENESS 

Is he a lord, my love, or some bright beggared 
guest 
In tatters shaken by the windy blow, 
This shape I dearly know and do not 
know. . . . 
This Protean shape that changes on my breast! 
No tawny nestler now, where nests this black de- 
light; 
These purple locks upleaping, crows in snow. 
And glooming irids, charged with heavy night. 
Where late there trembled me 
A golden fleece and eyes the brothers of the sea. 
Is he a lord, my love, or does a shadow hold 
The place of one, once golden, beggared of his 
gold? 



[8i] 



HIS BURDEN 

Weary of whiteness and pallor of gold 
On tresses of northmen that curl in the cold; 
I fled the austere, 
I fled the blue eye: 
And journeying far with a star 
That flamed ever fiercer, revolted from fear, 
And made bold 
By the high broken bars of the cold. 
Like a lion leaped in the sky. 

Longing for beauty of blackness, with deep 
Eyes like a night that is starless for sleep, 
The night's own eyes that can pardon 
For softness, nor harden 
With steel of implacable soul: 
Sweet flagrant, the reeler in sweet. 
The dissolute king of retreat. 
Lord of large flowers. 
The coloured and carnivaled whole 
Of honeyed and harvestless hours; 
Lord of the shadowy lip that sings, 

Of the darkling smile. 
Of delicate guileless guile. 
King of all kind, caressed and careless things. 

[82] 



Searching for this, long search I found you after, 

Master of blackness and full crowned thereby: 
But ah, your flowery lip in laughter 

Was like all broken lutes and buds that die I 
Six full waves of wonder drowned me — seven. 

And on the seventh foamed your beauty whole ; 
But, like an angel helled in highest heaven, 

You wept with bitter burden of a soul! 



[83] 



HIS TREACHERY 



Then coming like some careful one that loves too 
high, 

You bowed, abasing your most plumed head, 
Pearling humility with pride's emblazonry, 

The cloaked gems, hid fire, darkly red: 
Making a wonder of imperial lowliness. 

Of kings unkinged, warriors unspeared and sped. 
"Who fears me?" said your proud eye, weaponless, 

"So to the living creep the humbled dead. 
For lack of you has made me dead." She heard. 

Bending to lift you like a beaten bird. 
Love's spoiled pilgrim, weeping with the 
cold. . . . 

Sudden, she felt you terrible with gold! 



[84] 



HIS TREACHERY, TO ANOTHER TUNE 

II 

Who was he, the cheating sweet. 
That played he was her vassal. 

And wept the whole night in the street 
Before he stormed the castle? 

You it was that did this shame, 

Love's battered beggar when you came. 

Who enter, plumed, with iron feet 
And now, so flash and flame! 



[85] 



HIS BEAUTY 

When first she saw the pillow blazing with his 
head, 

She cried in terror, "Passion now is dead! 
It is too much: desire is intercept, 

Such beauty puts it out!" and weeping fled. 

Then he with giant laughter, crowned adept 
In love, like twenty moons unleapt; 

"But yours is not too much !" His voice, the swell 
And bellow of a brazen bell. 



[86] 



HIS LITTLENESS 

I call you little though you are so high, 
I make you little as a bird: 

Little as a bird to nestle in a breast 
Under the leafy cover of a robe: 

Not too far under for that sidelong eye. . . . 
The wildernesses eye that peeps and hides, 

There where you press on mine a downy heart- 
Ah, me, I fear to make you little as a bird! 

I fear this downy traffic with a bird! 
And faint to call you little who are high. 



[87] 



THE MAKER'S STEALTH 

You have grown so gentle, now you have your fill, 
And all this honey on your lips I spill: 

I who loved the lion, must I love the dove. 

Wings on my breast, where burned that shaggy 
love: 

If you see me pale in terror of your tears. 
So the maned Samson trembled at the shears. 

Kiss you asleep — then down through dreams un- 
sounded — 
Plunge I upon another you, confounded, 
■Drowned in sterner wonder, drink more dire de- 
light. 
And play with hooded strangeness all the night! 



[88] 



THE FLIGHT 

Tonight, a strangeness came upon me : 

I, the staggering sleeper, 

The drouthy kisser of sleep, 

I wearied of sleeping: 

And as a drunkard rises and reels from the 

dark place 
Where he lay dreaming. 
His locks still heavy with broken wreaths and 

the spilth of wine. 
And finds himself, weeping with daylight; 
So, I fled from you — 
Out from the doorways — into the Awake. 



[89] 



YOU SAW ME LOVE HIM 

You saw me love him. . . . 

Though I crept 

Under leaves to where he slept: 

Though my stealthy knees, 

Crawling round the roots of trees, 

Hardly drew a sigh 

From the flowers softly slain; 

Dying without any pain, 

Like forgotten babes that swoon, 

Kissed too closely by the moon. 

You saw me love him. . . . 

Though the towering night, 

Liege of lovers, lifted tall 

Builded blackness, wall on wall, 

Staggering sight. 

Eyeless donjons dumb and stark, 

Blinded parapets of dark, 

You saw me love him. . . . 



[90] 



so, YOU WOULD NOT FORGIVE 
ME. . . . 

So, you would not forgive me. . . . 

And your velvet sigh. 

Averted from this bitter-fruited I, 

Fell like a plume behind you as you w^ent; 

While, backward sent. 

The wounded condor's look 

iBurned on the one forsook, 

[Beneath your spacious eye's extinguished sweet, 

With sootheless deserts of extreme defeat. 

[But I, the soothed of monsters, lulled by groans, 
Lie well, consoled of vultures, nursed of stones. 



[91] 



SICK WITH HEAVEN 

1 said, "Now, sick with heaven, I turn my face 
Of Lucifer from this too lovely place; 

'Twas here I wept for giants; and the deep 
Sighing of gods, that in proud secret weep 

With loneliness of kingly state forlorn: 

And for great lovers by crowned sorrow torn 

Of desperate loveliness, 
And hard, too golden stress 

Of 'crusted robes, whose jeweled weavings, worn 
With cruel weight on breasts too much embraced, 

So bruise with gems that white, imperial haste. 

Let me go bare, 

I cried, of this too heavy fair. 
And all this crested wealth of gilded care. 

If these rich tears shall sting that kissed smile. 
Let me be he who now shall starve a while! 



[92] 



NORWAY 

I. THE MAGICAL HEARTS 

Three magical hearts of Norge 

Came over the world in ships, 

And brought the night-suns of their eyes, 

The liquid of their lips; 

They brought their sea-souls wildly wise, 

That Viking dreams enclose, 

And the flowing flame of the northern skies 

To redden a western rose; 

The magical hearts of Norge. 

And all the hearts were sea-hearts, 
Wide as worlds are wide. 
Enchanted well with olden tales and tunes. 
And floods of stars that rode along the tide, 
And fleets of full-rigged moons. 

And one was like the roaring of the wave 
That drives upon the rock with heavy urge. 
The master-player playing to the brave, 
The music and the madness of the surge. 

[93] 



And all the hearts were sea-hearts, beating fiercely 

free, 
And beautiful as shapes that beckon us in sleep, 
And kind as children, kissing playfully: 
And one was like the long enquiry of the deep, 
With princely will prevailing, 
A-search for all the secret shores there be, 
And one was like a golden sea-bird sailing, 
Or the silver singing of the sea. 

Three magical hearts of Norge 

Came over the old sea-track, 

Where their helmed fathers went before. 

And took strange plunder back: 

But now they take, in giving more, 

A kingly trade disclose; 

Three magical hearts of Norge 

For the single heart of a Rose. 



[94] 



II. THREE 



We were loved, you and I, 
We were loved by the Three: 
And the cup was filled high, 
We were loved, you and I : 
Though we dwindle and die. 
Though we falter and flee. 
We were loved you and I, 
We were loved by the Three! 



''Come back and kiss us all once more!" 

Cried the Prince: 

And we, pausing in the door. 

Returned again — and since, 

We are not as we were before. 

For we are roses, roses now, 
Where the wild bee sighs and sips, 
And each rose upon her bough 
Has three shadows on her lips: 

[95] 



And each rose-heart rosily 
Trembles with the lips of three. 
And we are roses, roses now, 
Who only women were before. 
And three winds that shake the bough. 
Cry, "Come and kiss us all once more!" 



[96] 



III. SEA-COMER 

Birger 

Who was he 

That came from the sea, 

With the crested head 

Of an eagle in the red 

Of the sun? 

Who was the kingly one 

With such a grace 

In his face? 

Who was so kind, 

With the mind 

That stabbed like a sword ; 

And the word 

Like a preying bird; 

Whose streaming hand 

Spilled gifts like sand; 

Whose pain was the rain, 

Whose mirth was an earth; 

Whose eye 

Was a sky? 

Who was as proud 

As the trumpet crying loud, 

[97] 



As the flying ship? 

Who had the curling lip 

That made 

The lover's heart afraid? 

Who was he 

That returned to the sea? 



[98] 



IV. THE FAIRY CHILD 
To Malta 

There was a woman once 
And she had a fairy child; 
It was delicately wild, 
And it had a different play 
And a different delight; 
It was too silver for the day, 
Too golden for the night. 

It was light 

As a leaf along the floor, 

Or a wind in the door, 

Or the shadow on the stair, 

That might not be there. 

When she held it on her knee, 
She wore her silken gloves, 
As one, all carefully, 
Holding doves. 

When she combed its hair. 
Golden silk, 

[99] 



She was faint with fairy care, 
Pale as milk. 

When she spoke she swooned, 
Though she smiled, 
For fear a word would wound 
Such a golden child. 

When she put it into bed, 
The bed began to pray, 
For fear that such a golden head 
Might fade before the day. 

But when she left the praying bed. 
The fairy child burned bright; 
Its little brothers came, 'tis said. 
To play with it all night. 

But when it made its little words. 
In tunes that lisp and fall. 
The tongue that spoke like silver birds 
Was not a child's at all. 

There was a woman once 
And she had a fairy child; 
It was delicately wild 
And it left a fairy grief. 
And fairy lack beyond belief. 

For she gave it to a prince 
Because he was so fair, 
[lOo] 



And ne'er before, or since, 
Was there such a golden pair. 
And he carried it away 
With the far wave's foamy flight; 
It was too silver for the day. 
Too golden for the night. 



[lOl] 



V. MATTA JOURNEYING AMONG 
FJORDS 

She journeyed like a flower 

Borne along the breeze, 
The rocks gave up their moaning 

As she passed their knees. 

The pines gave up their sighing, 
The mountains leaned to gaze 

At such a silky traveller 
Going down their ways. 

The tarns climbed up their edges. 

Hiding all their Fears; 
To see the flying petals 

The Nokken dried his tears. 

The eagle stooped to listen. 

The sun forgot the hour. 
The Terrors ceased their trembling 

When she journeyed like a flower. 

And we who went beside her 

With her laughing eye. 
Remembering her perfume 

Forgot to say goodbye. 

[102] 



VI. THE STAG 

The stag that owned the mountains and the tarns 
Gave us his royal right in each abyss ; 
He gave it like a bright and bitter kiss, 

With princely bowing of his towered horns. 

He stilled for us his tarns that nursed the night, 
He calmed his hurrying mountains, row on row, 
Bucked out with flying bucks that spurned the 
snow. 

And seagulled out with seagulls, flight on flight. 

He called his grieving pines in serried spears, 
He called his sudden birches and his birds, 
He called his echoes for their fainting words. 

And cataracts that fell in floods of tears. 

He wooed us with his winds and with his flowers. 
Implored us with his shadows and his mist. . . . 
And all that follows of the dream we kissed 

Is crying of that wounded stag of ours. 



[103] 



VII. EARTH 

I have been with the ships ; 

I come with the salt on my lips, 

Will you take me again? 
I have sunk, I have ceased, 
By the surging seducer released — 

Will you take me again? 
Deliver your breast 
To the sea-wounded guest — 

Brown, brown! 
Let me in — let me down! 
Throbless and safe from the blue, 

Safe from the sorrow and sound; 
Let me be trampled with ground — 
Let me be thrust upon you! 

Will you take me again? 
Lick ofif the brine from my face, 
Ground-winds that pause and that pace 
In the grass! 
Pass, pass. 
Torment and tigers of sea! 

Give me a tree! 
Give me a cover, a cloak! 
Make room for the beaten, the broke! 
[104] 



Make a bed for the traitor to weep. 

I forgive you and sleep. 
I have been vvrith the ships, 
I come vs^ith the salt on my lips. 

Will you take me again? 



rio5] 



FOUR POEMS TO KALLISTA 

I. SILK 

When all the forge-fires of the day expire, 
I put on you, my love, as silk attire; 

I make me fair with you, my silk, and wear 
The smile you give my lips to make me fair. 

I don you as a garment, deep impearled. 

To lord it in the world; 
And trail you for the stars that all look down 

With silver staring, paled with my renown 
And starry gleam of me. 

And then, ah then, where is my penury? 
Not mine the ragged heart that is for hire! 

I put on you, my love, as silk attire. 



[io6] 



II. LIFT UP YOUR HANDS 

Lift up your hands. . . . 
And let me look at those two hearts, your palms: 
Then, give me leave to lay these kisses in, 
First, round the rims where the warm nests begin. 
And now, deep, deep, among the blooms and balms. 

I take my heart. . . . 
So, loosening at last, its ancient bands. . . . 
Now, make of those two kissed palms a breast. . . . 
And let me lay this iron babe to rest: 
But no — what throes between your bruised hands! 



[107] 



HI. THE BANQUET 

I make a banquet of you 

And you cannot say me nay: 
So, I spread you in the evening, 
And drink away the day. 

How dazzling is the damask! 

And, cresting from the cask, 
How flashing is the heady wave 

That purples in the flask! 

And how the lonely feaster. 
As he brims the flagon up. 

Laughing underneath his garland, 
Leans his lip upon the cup! 

Oh, is there any ear, now. 

So delicate and vain, 
To listen if the wine should sigh, 

Or if the bread complain? 



[io8] 



IV. I WOULD NOT HAVE YOU 
SEE ME 

I would not have you see me sobbing out, 

When my low candle shakes into the blast, 
And all my armoured prides are put to rout; 

Nor that wild eye be on you at the last. 
Great love, be you not leaning there to meet 

The obliterating fall of that defeat; 
Lest, made too clear, in ways, the rude duress 

Should violate your sovereign tenderness. 

Be far away, and live in safer doubt, 
Unknowing if I like a stranger passed; 

Too strange for courtesies of love's farewell. 
Be far away, lest such a shame befell 

Me, in dying, as that you should call, 
And clownish I not answer you at all. 



[109] 



AND NOW IT SEEMED TO ME 

And now, it seemed to me 

My life was but a drowse, 

Where thought stole dubiously 

As moonlight under boughs 

In shadows of a shaken dance, 

Lustering what was, perchance, 

With what was not; 

While many a darkling spot 

Was caverned doubt, 

Where question, like a candle, is put out. 

I dreamed that I was cold; 

Or that the summer slew 

The spring with fangs of gold; 

Or that the forest drew 

A fever from the autumn and was burned. 

I thought I turned 

This way and that with thirst 

Of this and that, and dreamed 

Of best and worst; 

And seemed. 

Oh, most imponderable seeming! 

To love in dreaming. 

[no] 



THE THIEF 

"Where did you go while I slept?" I cried, 

To my citizens, one, two, three. 
"I waked but once," the Heart replied, 
"And wept and turned on my other side 

And again slept patiently." 

"And thou, my wanton one and wild, 

Didst thou stir before the lark?" 
Said the Tongue, "I lay like the unborn child, 
Deedless and dumb and dark-beguiled 

And confounded with the dark." 

"And thou, the tameless, that dost lie 

"Beneath the folded cover?" 
"I slept," the Body made reply, 
"Forgot the cold, forgot the cry 

For the unremembered lover." 

"But who went forth, who stole away 

Of my citizens three and four? 
Who creeped out while asleep I lay, 
And rode the dark till the dawn of day, 

Though he never opened door?" 
[in]- 



"The Thief went out, the Thief was the one!" 

Cried the citizens all within. 
"He laughed in the worlds where there is no sun, 
And went to a place where place is none. 

And he sinned a deadly sin!" 



[112] 



INDIAN SONG 

See how you wake again, the Hidden! 

Ah, ah, ah! 
Two little breasts of man too poor for kissing! 

No dreams of any milk at all! 
Sweet poverty — I lay there 
Two pomegranates heavy with their wine. 
See how you wake again the Hidden! 

Ah, ah, ah! 

Shape beneath the leaves. 
Crying in the grass so, 
Calling for my dead thoughts! 
Ah, ah, ah! 



[113] 



LEE 

(A Portrait) 

Darkling eye and golden hair, 
Velvet captive of a long despair; 
Lonely heart and Yorick's tongue, 
Gay and valiant, and forever young; 
Soul that weaves a magic like the moon. 
Soul that voyages — a vanished tune! 

Mimic, dancer, cavalier. 

Silky hand the proud horse loves to fear; 

Sailor and adventurer; 

Dark eyed peoples look and long for her, 

And the Spaniard claims her for his ov^n; 

She who lingers, loves, and goes alone. 

Tall as the Giralda and as fair, 

Darkling eye and golden hair! 

Golden hair and darkling eye. 
Where the golden sorrows ever lie. 
Velvet prisoners they are, and wild; 
One, a woman weeping for a child, 
(Her own childhood lost among the deeps,) 

[114] 



One, a child that for a woman weeps, 
One, a wide desire that never sleeps. 

Golden hair and silken knee. 

It is wide, the longing for the sea! 

Darkling eye and petal lips, 

Wide the windy longing for the ships! 

Painter's hand and poet's heart. 

Wide the cloudy hunger for an Art! 

Sigh that smiles and smile that is a sigh; 

Golden hair and darkling eye! 



["5] 



MANUEL'S BEDS 

Six white beds in a row, 
Six fairs that lie thereon. 
{Two beds that are folded and gone!) 
Four sisters lying pale; 

Each young breast bears a rose, 
Hid with the virgin's veil 

That no wild winds disclose. 
Their eyes the nights desire, 

Night wreathes each viney head 

Where pillowed curls are spread. . 
White prey of white-hot fire, 

One sister burns in bed. 

Two brothers lie, on guard. 
One by bright beauty starred: 
{For two, their far new beds are hard!) 
He leans, awake, and hears 

The burning sister's tears 
And little wounded words, 

Until they come no more. 
He keeps four singing birds 

For his sisters four. 

[ii6] 



RICHARD'S HOUSE 

'Twas in a woody place the wonder went, 
A drunken house with flowers and leaves besprent, 
A drunken singing house in sweet carouse. 
That reeled among the boughs. 

I never saw so mad a house before; 

I ran and leaped me through the running door; 

I leaped and joined me to the radiance 

Of lovely mad ones all that dwell therein; 

Of one half boy, half maid, in desperate dance. 

And one whose lips let out a silver din. 

The poet's necromance. 

And one was like a shaft of ivory. 

Flushed faintly where a rose had left a stain. 

And fair to see. 

Whose soul was music smiling in its pain. 

And one, majestic, leaned within the door 

With deep, deep eyes, who heard the lutes no more. 

And ah, the great mad grandmother was there! 

The guilty one that made old age too fair. 

That made youth-lovers turn in love with snow, 

[117] 



Fain for lost gardens where lost roses grow. 
Her unrepentant youth hung on the cross 
Of her triumphant ancientry, 
And his strong laughter at his lovely loss 
Drew blossoms from the tree. 

Oh, mad grandmother, did I dream you quite, 
Oh, ivory shaft, and you, half boy, half maid? 
Or shall I find you on a summer night 
Where reels the drunken moon through shaken 

shade 
To dance with that mad house to silver din, 
Inebriate of the poet's flute within? 



[n8] 



THE TWO DESPAIRS 

To A. A. C. O W 

Your despair and my despair 

Went out to walk and take the air: 

They went to Walk, and they were pale 

As moons that rainy winds enveil, 

And stilly wept into their hair, 

Your despair and my despair! 

They walked until the death of night, 

Through many a misty world estranged. 

When they came back their names were changed, 

We could not tell them from delight. 



[■19] 



THE DESERT-DWELLER SAID 



You who crowned me for beauty in the market 
place, 

You leave me alone at last. 
At last, you leave me alone with my deformity; 
And I am as one who goes into his own house. 

Closing the door behind him. 



II 



I smile at last — being alone. 
And I release my sighing. 
For I love my hatred of myself more than I love 

your love of me. 
And I love my own disdain more than I love 

your worship, 
And I love my paleness more than you love my 

vermilion, 
And my dereliction more than you love my 

honours. 
And my terror more than you love my valour, 

[120] 



And my doubt more than your faith in me, 
And my despair more than your hope in me, 
And my defeat more than my triumph before you, 
And my disgrace more than your woven wreaths. 



[121] 



CONSCIOUSNESS 

Then as I watched, with lost soul through lost 

eyes, 
I saw, between the windy earths and skies, 
The nothingness take form with hollow sighs; 
Until, at last, 
A face was there, with consciousness aghast! 

Two shapes beside the soundless staring hung; 

One seemed the Lust-of-being, that gave tongue 

And made advance 

With hoofed dance; 

And one, the very Wound-of-being, nursed 

His trapped heart in its shaken cage accursed. 



[122] 




."^ 



WHY HAVE YOU TURNED AWAY FROM 
ME, MY PRIDE? 

Why have you turned away from me, my Pride? 

What shall I do without my splendour? 

If I am to be humbled, 

I who am not used to half things, 

I must have excess of humbling; 

The surface of the earth is not low enough for me, 

I must be lower; 

Like a fierce stone struck from heaven, 

I must pierce to my lownessi 

I must be inearthed. 



[123] 



NOW, MY LYRE 

Now, my lyre again, again! 
Come back my coloured song! 
Sullen singer dumb with rain, 
Bird belated long! 
Bird that hid a bruised beak 
Through broken-hearted dark. 
It is morning, swell and speak, 
Lift, my lark! 

For we who died while it was night. 

Lift up a louder cry; 

And stone-blind eyes that come to light 

Sigh out a mighty sigh. 

The tongues that were as still as stone 

Like broken rivers run, 

And stricken birds make golden moan 

That shakes the brazen sun: 

While Lazarus, proud with new desire. 

Heaps Death with Life's disdain. 

And fills his saved song of fire 

With fury of the slain. 



[124] 



IS IT MY LAUGHTER? 

Is it my Laughter? 
Is it my Laughter that comes here, 
This stranger bending in the rain? 
How unfamiliar the face is, 

This divine harlequin-face. 
Wet with rain! 

Who called you. Forgotten? 
Who called you, Mountebank, Lost one? 

My sorrow, you say? 



[125] 



HIS DISTANCE 

Ah, he went away too far! 

Farther than lost leaves and lovers are! 

With loss of singing lips, 

Greater than the loss of golden ships, 
Steeper than the losing of a star — 

He went away too far. 

Farther than the farthest flute. 
Farther than the belling of his lute 

And bright Balboan words; 

Fleeter than the nest can call the birds, 
Fainter than the fall of winds that mute. 

And farther than a flute. 



[126] 



THE RECOVERY 

I led him back from hell's disgrace, 
But held my eyes the while; 

I took the hell-cloth from his face, 
But turned me lest he smile. 

I sealed my eyes, yet feared that he 
Would smile there in the gloom. 

For even sealed eyes must see 
That wonder — and their doom. 

The withered garland from his crest 
With blind hands I unbound; 

I shook to feel his breathing breast. 
And wept upon the ground. 

I took the windings from his hands. 

The death-vest off I took. 
And loosed the long, long linen bands. 

But never dared to look. 

I shook the hell-damp from his hair, 

And turned me, not to see 
What followed pale behind me there. 

The boy-Eurydice. 

[127] 



LIPS AND EYES 

The little boys that are your smiles 

Go quaintly in and out, 
With witty plays and antic wiles 

Of goatlings all about. 

The penitents that are your eyes, 
Each with his prayer appears, 

And care too cursed for any cries. 
And lovely ghosts of tears. 

Ah, those that play with quirk and quip. 

And these that daily die! 
Repentless urchins of the lip, 

And culprits of the eye. 



[128] 



TO A GREAT PRAISING POET 

O, fruiting poet golden with your fruit, 

I, mute, 
And leaning in my tunic's fold. 
Gather the downfall of your leafy lute. 

Heavy to hold, 
Ah, heavy to hold. 
This fallen weight of fruited gold! 

She falters 'neath the Olympian ornament, 

Who treads with golden load 
(Where once she trod 

Uncrowned and inillustrious went), 
Like her of Argos golded of the god. 

Ah, poet august, in this my honoured hour. 
Drenched in your spreading power 

And radiant rain of you. 
My singing lifts beneath the gleaming shower. 
And Perseus stirs anew. 



[129] 



RETURN 



When I went back there 

I was as cautious as a dead man. 

I passed the palm trees with care, 

Not looking too intently, 

For fear of spilling my heart too soon. 

And I waited long before daring the house. 
The coward of delight. 

But the house was there 

Still trembling; 

The sea still leaned listening up the walls, 

Below the alert 

Of the windows 

And in the room. . . . 

The perfect grief was waiting. 



II 



When I went back 

To take leave of you again. 



You were still sitting there; 
But you had the look 
Of a painted king 
That has been gone a thousand years. 



['31] 



WAR 

L WAR 

Escape thee — 

The knowing — the sight! 
The red on thy dress! The bright, 

The terrible brightness of red 
On thy garment that steams, 
Thy garment the sun cannot dry; 
The thing in thy hand that streams 

Like the beak of a vulture fed. 
The wound of thine eye. 

Thine inconsolable lip, 
Thy scutcheon of scarlet, thy feet 
That drip. . . . 

I hide me! 
In front of my eyes 
I draw down the scarves of the skies. 
I heave up the mountains and hold 

Their shoulders between. 
I lift up the sea for a screen. 
I hide me in purple and gold 

Of singing. I deaf me with lyres. 
[132] 



I crouch with the curled, the sires 

Of singing, the pipers that smile; 

I hide me with glozing, with guile. 

With laughter, and sighing and sleeping. 

With feasting and fast. 
With wine and with weeping. 
With groaning of labour and love, 

With anvil and violin. 

But ever, at last. 
Thou partest the wall where he lies, 

(In sleep, or sobbing, or song,) 
The hider; and lookest in. . . . 
With thine ensanguined eyes — 

With lethal looks and long. 



[^33i 



II. I LEFT MY PIPES 

"And I will slay, and Fll be slain, 

If needs must be to keep 
The happy woods for dreamers fain 

Where fauns and dryads sleep." 

I left my pipes and pipers fair, 

Farewelled each leafy wight; 
And fierce upon the foemen there, 

I drove into the fight. 

I thrust one through his spreading breast, 

I broke one at the knee, 
I clove another's curling crest 

And throat of ivory. 

One died in weeping, like a child. 

One like a stag that cries, 
And one with looks so brightly wild, 

Was like a god that dies. 

Mine was the battle, and by me 
Were saved my grove and plain: 

I turned me once about to see 
The faces of my slain. 

[134] 



Oh, golden fall that flowered the lawns 1 
Oh, honied mouths that bled! 

They were the faces of my fauns. 
And dryads, that were dead. 



[135] 



III. THE DEAD MEN FALL 

And all day long I cannot see 

The day, nor be consoled, 
For strange things failing on my heart 

That make my heart cold. 

Like leaden leaves that fall and fall 
From a' strange and stricken tree, 

The dead leaves falling on my heart, 
That weigh heavily. 

My heart that was as red as gold. 

It shone at dead of night. 
The dead men falling on my heart 

Have turned my heart white! 

O, pale, pale heart be paler still 

And beat no more at all. 
Where heavy, heavy, one by one, 

The dead men fall. 



[136] 



IV. ANOTHER SPRING 

Another Spring! 

Where no birds sing, 

Nor any newborn thing 
Makes downy curling in the nest; 

No leaf to heal the trodden crest 

Of the hill. No wing. 
Oh, fool of Spring! 

Freeze, freeze. 

You blasted trees 
That shall not wake to any breeze, 

Nor honied sigh 
Of passing butterfly. 

Another Spring! 

'Neath the relenting suns. 

Only the long guns. 
Wolves of winter, gore her grace, 

Defile the virgin's face. 
All unredressed. 

And spit on flowers of her breast. 

Another Spring! 

I, bleeding in the ditch. 



Behold a lean, bereaven bitch 
Come whimpering. 
Another Spring! 



[138] 



V. TO MATTHEW ARNOLD, 1917 

'Tis well you went away and closed the gate, 

Taking your fine, your sad, your sweet, your 
light. 
With that long, delicate lip and passionate, 

(Before this night. 
Did you divine, and did you fear to lose 

The pace long-vestured and the priestly song. 
And so went softly lest the cries confuse. 

Or wounds should make you wrong? 



[139] 



VI. TO A POET RETURNING 
FROM CHINA, TO THE WAR 

Oh, recovered, oh sweet! 
Come with the far, far feet. 

Out of the far. 
Heavy with gold as you are. 

Heavy with danger. 
Burdened with beauty of farness, 
With fair that is stranger 
Than fear. 
Oh, recovered, oh sweet! 
Strange is the dust on your feet, 
(Let the far be near, 
Though we are afraid!) 
Dust of topaz and jade 

Of golden gods that caress 
From the dust, appeased and wise. 
There is gold on your dress. 
There is gold in your golden eyes; 
The averted eyes that lament 
From our breasts for the way you went; 
That gaze o'er the shoulder and live 
In desperate wonder withdrawn, 
In the glittering gone: 
[140] 



That ever look back and burn 

From the cruel garland we give- 
The ruinous rose of return. 



[>4i] 



VII. WAR-WIFE 

Ah, he is young who lords it over me! 

And tall and fair, 

A gallant sight to see; 

And all his hair 

Ferns wreathingly, 

And he is young who lords it over me. 

Bring me a ship 

That I may take the sea, 

And find again 

The difficult, sweet underlip 

That speaks with pretty pain, 

Like youngest birds there be. 

Ah, he is young who lords it over me! 

And sternly great 
In harnessed bravery; 
He walks in warrior's state, 
With girded waist, 
Alas, no more embraced 
Save by the sword-belt heavily. 
And leather to the knee, 
Though he is young who lords it all over 
me! 

[142] 



And strange and sad 
E'en in his laughter he; 
For fate that falls so mad 
On many a bridal lad 
Has used him fatefuUy. 

The loveling like a bee 

That winds tear from the flower, 

Fades farther, hour by hour, 

Is taken by the sea; 

Ah, he is lost who lords it over me! 



[143] 



VIII. THE ROADS 

All the roads lead back to France, 

Where young men used to go to dance ; 

But now, they go in other wise. 
There is no dancing in their eyes. 

All the roads lead back to France, 

Where young men used to find Romance: 

Today, a stranger face she shows 
And wears another, darker rose. 

To France, where young men went to school, 
To France where young men played the fool. 

Their young eyes look another way. 
They will not play the fool today. 

They will not play, nor take their books, 
Nor question much a maiden's looks; 

And where they laughed, so, as they went. 
Their laughter will be different. 

Their singing will not sound the same. 
Their hope will wear a sterner name, 

[144] 



For gentle lads as they advance 
Are fearful on the roads to France. 

And fearful are the young, young eyes 
That war shall make so fiercely wise ; 

When lads shall such a lore attain, 
They will not play at games again. 

The flowery roads that lead to France 
Are filled with pomp and circumstance; 

For as they go along this track. 
They meet young dead men coming back, 

All going home on windy feet; 

They do not greet them when they meet. 
They do not greet, they do not glance 

At dead men in the roads to France. 

They do not tremble as they go, 

Life's flower to the dream they throw; 

Youth's lily turned to be a lance. 

When all the roads lead back to France. 



[145] 



IX. WHEN THE DEAD MEN DIE 

In a world of battlefields there came 
Strange things abroad by night, 

For the dead they have but little shame 
When their hearts are turned to white. 

And we who war, and wake to sigh. 

Are apt to hear the slain. 
Whose dead hearts go abroad and cry 

Not to be killed again. 

For they are now in Jacques and John, 

Hans, Beppo, and the rest; 
Their broken hearts are beating on 

Inside each breaking breast. 

Their murdered hearts they make a moan 
For the deaths they died before, 

And shattered soul with shattered bone 
Doth dread to die once more. 

For many deaths their moan is made 
When the mortal charges start; 

It is hard to leap the escalade 
And carry a dead man's heart! 

[146] 



Remember, men of guns and rhymes, 

And kings who kill so fast, 
That men you kill too many times 

May be too dead at last; 

That hearts may be too dead at length 

To beat again and cry, 
And kings may call in vain for strength 

When the dead men die. 



[147] 



SOFT SONG 

After the War 

Let us be soft, 
Let us pot be brave; 
Nor put more iron ships upon the wave, 
Nor put more iron questions to the Dumb. 
And if one calls, let us no longer come. 
Let us forbear. 
Leave and loose us there. 

Lean and lie like this, 
Let us kiss, 
(But let us be soft. 

Let us be soft, 
Let us not be wise; 
No more with fatal words contrive replies. 
Nor lace the corselet of the shuddering will, 
Nor climb for curious wonder any hill. 
Let us delay- 
Let us make the day 

Into night with sleep. 
Let us weep, 
(But let us be soft. 

[148] 



THE SULLEN SON 

The Maker said, "The work is done. 
Stand up, my Clay, my sullen son. 
Stand up till seventy years have passed, 
And you are crumbled clay, at last." 

The sullen son he heaved a sigh. 
And heavily answered, "Let me lie." 

The Maker said, "You shall be knowing 
Ten times seven years of going; 
And seven hours of mortal bliss. . . . 
And death will be the end of this. 
But sundry of my dead sons say 
The price was not too much to pay." 



[149] 



THE WAKING HOUSE 

Was it the night-bee, or a bird, 

Or sighing in the street? 
Or but the house's heart that stirred 

And started, then, to beat? 

Or but the house's soul that woke 
And shuddered with its care. 

Lest all its sleepers' hearts be broke 
In sleep while sleeping there! 

For careful houses weep, they say. 
Between the dark and light, 

As hearts that have not broke by day 
Are apt to break at night. 

But weary houses must awake 
When women rub their eyes. 

And from the near-by cradle take 
The early babe that cries. 

The old man dons his memory 
And wonders how to live. 

And just how old a man must be 
Before he can forgive. 
[1^50] 



Before he can forgive the day 

That kills his youth again, 
The youth that comes to bed to play 

When old men sleep from pain. 

The swain that vowed him to despairs, 

Now rosily recants: 
The Night folds up his showman's wares 

And takes his elephants. 

He takes his silver queens and dim. 

His leapers, man by man; 
His lions follow after him. 

His Abyssinian. 

On boats of morn his tents embark, 

He calls his harlequins; 
The Merry-Andrews of the dark 

Make off as day begins. 

The bed where two together sleep 
Where once one wept in bed, 

Now feels the long hair wake and creep 
To wreathe the husband's head. 

The mouse foregoes his tiny snore, 
The phantom leaves the stairs, 

The sleepy butterfly once more 
Resumes her heavy cares. 

The flowers on one window sill 
Turn prudent heads about, 

[IS'] 



So not to see against their will 
The curly climber-out. 

The dwarf down in the cellar makes 

His little dusty bed, 
The god up in the garret shakes 

His hyacinthine head. 

The song is looking for the lark, 
The brooms beseech the maids. 

And those that died while it was dark. 
They sigh and get their spades. 

The window yawns, the bedposts reel 

Fatigued into the day; 
The wakened cover laughs to feel 

The maiden's breasts at play. 

Her little shoes that on the floor 

Have braved the darkness through. 

Like little dogs look toward the door 
And long for drinks of dew. 

The shutters now consign their charge, 
The floors commence to creak, 

The chimney-smoke is high and large 
The pot begins to speak. 

The cordial door opes, bowing low, 
The room puts out its lamp, 

And down the road that houses go 
The house begins to tramp. 



THE POET'S TWO QUEENS 

'^Ye say these Twain did on their gowns, 
Their shoon o Spanish leather, 

And fading from their seven towns, 
Sae fared them forth together?" 

The Twain did on their golden words 

With which their lord bedecked them; 
And like the plumes of purple birds, 

The jewels flashed and flecked them. 
The people cried, "For goodly gear 

They dim the summer surely. 
The day will be put out, we fear, 

The sun it shines so poorly!" 

And they did on each red, red wound 

With which their lord attired them; 
The wine-red west it sighed and swooned, 

So much the west admired them. 
And blood-red rubies sighed and said, 

"These queens are 'sprent so gaily. 
We seem as rubies done and dead, 

They make us gleam so palely." 

[153] 



AS YOU WENT 

As you went, as you went, 
A golden banner backward bent; 
As the Lost look o'er the shoulder, 
As the retreater brightens, bolder, 
As the fear grows cold and colder; 
As the wind repents and turns. 
As the last kiss burns and burns! 



[154] 



NIGHT SONG 

What was so sweet before? 
What shadow passed? 
What feet along the floor 
Went fierce and fast? 
Was it a closing door 
(Locked, at last,) 
That was so sweet before? 
Was it a sigh, 
Or more, 
That was so sweet before? 

Was it the cry, 
(Sudden as a bird,) 
That lovers most adore — 
The sound without the word — 
Pressed 
From the stricken breast — 
That was so sweet before? 

Is it tears, or rain? 
(The wind begins to roar.) 

You wring your hands! Again? 
What are you listening for? 

The wind's disdain? 
There are no sweetlings more 

That were so sweet before! 

[155] 



THE RUNNERS 

"Run by my side," you said, 
Shaking your windy head: 
We sped. 

We run, we run, we dart 
With your Herculean heart. 
We do not part. 

We run, we leap the crag, 
I hide from you, my stag, 
What I drag. 

Ever our speed the same; 
You do not guess the shame. 
You, master of the game, 
I, the lame! 



[IS6] 



THEY SAID, GO AND ASSUAGE 
HIM OR HE DIES 

They said, "Go and assuage him or he dies, 
Handle the Horror with a silken glove. 
Tears to the Terror. Rain for outraged drouth. 
Fondle the Furious. Take the doomed a dove." 

What shall I do for you, my Raging — 

Beguile the old wronged thunder of his groan. 

Take the revolting sea into a lap. 

Soothe the sullen meditation of a stone. 

And wet those outlawed eyes that will not weep I 

Console the tiger, rock the wolf to sleep! 



[157] 



PIGEONS 

Did you hear me howling all night long? 
Yesterday, they took away my pigeons I 
I have no use for anything but pigeons, 
I cannot pray for anything but pigeons, 
And yesterday, they took away my pigeons! 

Who are they that come defiling pigeons — 
My silken, soft and silver pigeons, 
My cool, my bright, my burning pigeons I 
I could not sleep for thought of pacing pigeons I 
Proud pigeons I 
Pageantry of pigeons! 
I whined all night for thought of humbled 

pigeons — 
Of frightened kings 
And splendours tarnished down, 
Of lordly throats unlorded, 
Lovers unloved 
And queens unqueened! 
Yesterday, they took away my pigeons. 
Did you hear me howling all night long? 



[158] 



FIERCELY KIND AND BLACKLY 
BRIGHT 

Fiercely kind and blackly bright, 

He feasts the minstrels, night by night; 

He feasts the men of lyre and wit, 

Nor hardly gives a sigh of it, 

The secret lyre he hides from earth. 

His smile it listens well and long. 

His sadness charitable to mirth. 

His silence, hospitable to song. 

His shadow makes a place to play 

Where little children take delight. 

What sorrow haunts along his way. 

Fiercely kind and blackly bright? 



[■59] 



THE BETRAYED 
Poor cradle-song 

Fooled one, fooled one, 

Hush your little grieving; 
Because you were so little 

We fooled you into living. 
Because you were so little 

We gave you to the tear. 
But your father and your mother 

Were so young last year. 

Fooled one, fooled one, 

I never thought to tell you 
What a fix the world is 

And how they buy and sell you. 
You should have a golden cradle, 

You should have a silver stool. 
But when your little words come, 

Don't let the words be crool. 

Fooled one, fooled one. 
When my dove is sleeping, 

I'm playing that you don't know, 
Till cruel dawn is creeping; 
[i6o] 



Like a safe little dream-babe, 
That neither sees nor hears. 

But oh, it is your looking, 
With your little wild tears! 

Some day, some day, 

In scarlet coat and breeches 

You'll be chasing foxes 

With your fine hound bitches; 
And sporting velvet ladies 

To the King of Ireland's ball. 
And if you see me by the road. 
You needn't look at all. 



[i6i] 



THE DAY THE DOOM WAS FIXED 

The day the doom was fixed at last 
And the sign fell down the sky, 

I called my hundred souls to me 
And told them we must die. 

My hundred souls fell shivering 
And made a mighty cry. 

My hundred souls cried out amain, 
And begged more days and hours; 

My wise souls wept for foolish things, 
Desires and dreams and powers; 

My fools bemoaned the soul of fools 
And violins and flowers. 

One said ''I feel the pang, the haste 
Of those that die too soon!" 

And one would wait a little while 
Again to see the moon. 

I said, "We dare not see the sun. 
We cannot face the noon!" 

I said, "We cannot dare the day 
That strikes us from above!" 

[162] 



Sighed one poor soul, "They murmur on, 
The wind, the wave, the dove!" 

And one complained his woeful state, 
Yet unappeased from love. 

The tallest soul he heaved him up 
With roaring as of thunder. 

And cried, "My curse upon your hand! 
Like grass you plow me under! 

And it was I that saw the god 
And was half god with wonder." 



[163] 



YOU THOUGHT I LOVED YOU 

You thought I loved you, 
Because I smiled. 
You did not know the dread of stars that drove me, 
You could not know the mirth of moons that move 
me. 
Nor all the winds that weep me wild. 
You thought I loved you. 
Because I smiled. 

You thought I loved you, 
Because I groaned. 
You did not know the fear of fiends that sue me, 
You could not know the deaths that did undo me. 
Nor minds of men that in me moaned. 
You thought I loved you. 
Because I groaned. 



[164] 



FOOL SONGS 
I 

There was a lady fair that loved a fool, 
A heavenly fool that kept the flutes of heaven. 
She said : "For one thing wise men learn in school, 
He knows seven." 

She said: "He knows one secret of the sea, 
And one of mountains all mooned out with moons, 
And eagled out with eagles. And of me 
He knows a secret set to all his tunes." 

And the lady sang and said, 
"From bells FU never part, 
For it takes the wisest man 
To break a woman's heart." 

And the lady said and sang, 
"There is a heavenly rule. 
That a woman's heart is safe 
In the breast of a heavenly fool." 

II 

It is a fool that keeps the flutes of heaven, 
A fool is master of the lutes and lyres; 

[165] 



And he is wisest of all angels there, 
And captain of the tail and flaming choirs 
That sing before the Unutterable Fair. 
It is a fool that keeps the wise in heaven. 



[1 66] 



TO A POET COMING TO PARIS 

Out of the deeps you appear! 
And is it a day, or a year 

That we were apart, 

My vagabond Heart? 
Since we sang so, 

And rang so. 
Rattling our bells, 
Shaking the clappers of heavens and hells? 

It was long. 

The pause in our song. 
And no sea and no ship 

iBrought a merchandise 

Like the ore of your eyes. 
Nor the fine, fine coin of your lip. 

But now. 
How 

You enjambez the edge of the earth. 

Out of what mirth, 

Or what faring, funebre! 
Crac! You vault into this Paris celebre! 

No, you lounge in, flaneur: 
An effect of lucent loisir 

[167] 



Mantles your headlong career 
Toward Her. 

With your air of the stroller, the same, 

Gentle and speedy and sure 
Is your wild and wounded and pure 

Quest of "The Dame." * 

Now, to search your pockets for pearls I 

Poet, out with your snare! 
(See how the leaf uncurls!) 

Thieves of the Beau, we share I 

Thieves of the Beau, 

We uncover the find, we show — 
The plunder unveil. 

We know! 
Why have we gone so pale? 

Why have we gone so pale? 

Look, where it comes again! 
The towering of a sail. 
The bannering of a mane, 

The delivery of fight, 
The lances of the night. 

The lion's pace. 
The scutcheon of a King, 
The Face, 
The Thing! 

♦This poet gave to Beauty, herself, the title of The Dame, 

[i68] 



Shut the doorl 

Though it is Paris dehors, 
The inecrasable, the sot, 

Who did not know Death 

When they met, breath to breath, 
Sinews of Rodin and face of Watteau! 

Shut the door! 

It is here, as before. 
The phantom that shatters the heart! 
The Look! The Vesture . . . once more 
The Fougue! The Ghost! The Art! 

Welcome, Ghost-seer, perverse, 
Fool to his fellow, like birds 
Of a feather. What words 

Have you in your purse? 

You are rich! What plenty for play! 
There are more when these are gone. 
We are spendthrifts of grief, we are gay! 
We will play this ghost for his feu sacre! 
The game is on! 

We will play this king 

For his crown. 

For his ring 
And his ivory town. 

While the night is young 
We will play for his Tongue. 
When the night is old 

[.69] 



We will play for the gold 
Of his mighty eyes. 
When the larks arise, 
His mantle we will part; 
And when three times the cock-crow cries 
We'll toss for his terrible heart! 

Mon vieux! 
So, my hearty, you've really come! 
In the night, the sound of a drum 
And a flute at dawn gave word. 
Was it you, or a bird? 
Mon vieux, 



[170] 



THE TOO WITTY HUSBAND 

The ghosts of Homer and of Herrick, too, 
Inhabit him, the epic and the lyric, too; 
Still more, that stalwart, he that will not down, 
The ghost that drew the Hamlet and the clown. 
(Featest of conjurers, I lately wonder 
How you contrived to keep the two asunder!) 

A Merry- Andrew grinned a moment since 
Where I had turned me to behold my prince: 

Who would have dreamed a king so rude in play — 
Methought I loved a mountebank today! 

But now, I met my stateliest in the way 

And leaned on Prospero ... no such noble 
luck! 
Drubbed by the son of Sycorax, I pluck 
Me from his paws and then, am pinched of 
Puck! 

I came to lead the royal one to bed. 

And majesty stood twirling on his head! 

Ah, how I fainted with the clown too near — 
I closed my sight on that wide, jigging leer! 

Starry repenter who then bowed above 

My healed eyes . . . again, the king in love! 

[■71] 



SECOND FIDDLE 

Now, since it is the fashion 
To wear this kind of shape, 

With neither pain nor passion 
I meet a passing ape. 

I meet with equanimity 

That noble passer-by. 
And view hrs form's sublimity 

With firm and equal eye. 

And yet, that something waving! 

That something lithe and slim, 
Which in its brave behaving 

So decorateth him, 

The added grace thus making 

The lordly state of mind ; 
At that, my pride forsaking. 
The ancient grief awaking, 
I miss the frisk behind! 



[172] 



THE EVENT 

The sleeping houses stirred in sleep, 
And folk who slept they smiled, 

And those who wept all ceased to weep. 
And birds were dawn beguiled. 

For suddenly the town was red, 

It gleamed a crimson glow. 
And he who had not gone to bed. 

He groaned, and said "I know." 



1^731 



LINES COMPOSED IN SLEEP 

But if my love outlast me, 

Drug his thirst with amber drips 
From the wells where once I cast me, 

When I sailed in briny ships; 
For houseless love, the ruthless. 
Weeps with winter torn and toothless. 
So, soothe the sullen sootheless — 
But never touch his lips! 



[174] 



INVADER 

A dirty urchin climbed the tree 

Where sat the throned and plumed me 
I brandish but a golden tongue, 
And charm him who defiles my young. 

Honied curses grace his sins — 
The murderer slays to violins! 



[175] 



THERE WAS A FOOL 

There was a fool 

And he sat catching flies, 
April in his mouth 

And Winter in his eyes; 

And he was sad, 
For he had 

The heart of a king. 
Sing, sing! 
It is sad when a fool has the heart of a king! 

There was a king 

And he sat on his throne; 
His courtiers were dull, 

So he laughed all alone; 
And he was glad, 
For he had 

The heart of a fool. 
Rule, rule! 
It is glad when a king has the heart of a fool! 



[176] 



THE WOMAN OF PROPERTY 

Irish Song 

Do you think at this day you can call me and keep 
me, 
You that was good to me once and no more? 
And you that was bad to me, now you can weep 
me. 
Weep as you laughed with your laughing be- 
fore. 
I am the wind-flower, long winds they sweep 
me — 
I am the corn, and the reaper can reap me, 
I am the clay, with the young roots to lover me, 
I've got me own grass, and plenty to cover me. 



[177] 



SING A SONG OF SAGES 

Sing a song of sages, 
Butterflies of stone, 

Every wight his wages. 
Every dog his bone. 

Carry pap to Titans, 
Creeds for dying fools, 

Brooches for hanged men. 
Lullabies for bulls. 

Ribbons for the gibbet, 

Briars for the bed. 
Scarlet for the blindman. 

Brides for the dead. 

Velvet for the wolf. 

Poetry for posts, 
Violins for vultures, 

Trinkets for the ghosts. 



[178] 



CAPTURE 

Make way! I have a war to wage on roses! 

Do not impede me, 

Let the lovers lead me; 
Those for whom the cloven bud uncloses, 
For whom the brazen breezes break the roses! 

Let not the curious 

Retard the furious! 
The daring doomed one who this rage discloses. 

My wounds defy you. 

As I run by you 
To where the villain of delight reposes. 
The foe who fools me in his forts of roses! 

The white shall yield him, 

The red shall not shield him, 
Though the dearest dastard dreams and dozes! 

The sweet shall not stay it 

Nor darlings delay it — 
My capture of the culprit in the roses! 



[179] 



TWENTY-SIX EARLY POEMS 

I 

^ AND FEW THERE ARE 

And few there are who live, alas, 

And they are far from here. 
Who know how young and dear I was 
When I was young and dear. 



[i8o] 



H*: 




II 



I SIT A BEGGAR IN THE PORCH 
OF LOVE 

I sit, a beggar in the porch of Love; 

Closed is the door I could not hope to win, 
(But when another, careless, enters there, 

I seize one little, blinded look within. 



[i8i] 



Ill 

SHALL I CALL YOU AND CARRY 
YOU, NOW? 

Shall I call you and carry you, now. 

In the arms of my singing? 

As swift as the bird from the bough, 

So wildly up-winging? 

Shall I call you and comfort you low, 

With Tuning of rivers a-flow. 

With murmurs of crooning and clinging? 

Shall I call you and cast you a-far, 

In the might of my singing? 

Like winds that are wounding a star, 

So fiercely up-flinging? 

Shall I call you and clamour your pain, 

With thunderous ruin of rain. 

The tears of my terrible singing! 



[182] 



IV 
HE IS SO LITTLE AND SO WAN 

He is so little and so wan, 

This love I lose my life upon, 

A little careless lad, but sweet; 

Still, turn your idle smile on her 

Who wastes her spikenard and her myrrh, 
Forever on your feet. 

For who could ask a little lad 

To love, for loving is but sad, 
(Sweet Joseph into bondage sold!) 
Still, turn your idle smile on her 
Who wastes her spikenard and her myrrh. 
Forever unconsoled. 



[183] 



V 
IF THOU REMEMBEREST ME 

If thou rememberest me, 

It will be 

Not for my sweetness, 

Nor the high completeness 

Of my noblest folly; 

Nor for the melancholy 

That lay dim 

Upon mine eyelids' rim; 

Nor for my deeper laughter. 

Or the silence that came after; 

Nor for my thought that found thine 

Compassed, clasped and bound thine: 

But, if thou rememberest me, 

It will be 

As a gentle slight thing. 

Some poor and playful light thing, 

A blind clown dancing blindly, 

But thine own fool and kindly — 

If thou rememberest me. 



[184] 



VI 
WHERE ARE YOU MY DEAR? 

And where are you, my dear, my dear, 

My dear so soon forgot? 
The dear that was so dear to me, 

But now beloved not 

And where away, my dear, my dear, 
To whom my heart was kind? 

Now that I love you, love, no more. 
You hang upon my mind. 



[>85] 



VII 
YOU WHO CAN, COME CHARM ME 

Ah, you who can, come charm me! 
I lapse, I pass. 
Like the purple in the glass, 

And the charmless hurt and harm me. 
Ten thousand men 
Come by, and go again. 

And their wise, wise words alarm me; 
I dull, I dim, 
Like the bubble on the rim 

Of the cup that would disarm me; 
Sweet fool of mine. 
Save the credit of the wine, 

Ah, you who can, come charm me! 
Where e'er you be, 
Sweet fool, unknown to me. 

Ah, you who can, come charm me! 



[i86] 



VIII 
BUT IF YOU COME TO ME BY DAY 

But if you come to me by day, 

I shall not know at all, 
Nor hark your foot in any hall; 
I shall not know your look and way, 

(Unless you kiss and call.) 

No daylight-dear are you for loss, 

For man to win or weep. 
But one the careful Night shall keep — 
A fountain dim that flowed across 

The desert of my sleep. 

Oh, draught of dreams! Past sound and sight. 
Where never man could mark — 
Nor listen any drowsy lark — 

I held you in the hollow night 
And drank you in the darkl 



[187] 



IX 

DO NOT WEEP NOW 

Do not weep now while the evening goes, 
While that wounded rose 

Drops a flight of fainting petals there 
On the heavy air; 

Every one a dying butterfly, 

Falling like a sigh: 

Do not weep now while the evening goes. 

You shall weep tomorrow like the rain ; 

See our window pane, 
With one little candle all alight 

For the coming night; 
How the hut waits, hidden in with leaves, 

The last of our reprieves. . . . 
You shall weep tomorrow li-ke the rain! 



[.88] 



X 

YOU WHO PIPE SO LOUD 

You, who pipe so loud, there, making lusty love 
songs. 
You, who walk so close with cheeks that kiss; 
You, who sit alone, there, making plaintive dove- 
songs. 
Crooning to the sea of this and this : 

You, who shake the skies, there, with your lover's 
thunder; 

You, who sleep so ill for waiting tryst; 
You, who speak so wild as men who tell a wonder, 

All your kisses I have kissed and kissed. 

I have laughed your laughter, I have wept your 
weeping. 
All your little songs I sang before; 
Come not with your lutes, then, where I lie 
a-sleeping, 
I, who am a lover now no more. 



[189] 



XI 

SHUT IN THE JUNG-FRAU 

A safer place a man needs not 
From enemies a quiet spot; 

A foeman who could find me here 
Is worthy of his pot of beer. 

A weary man like me, fore-spent, 
Might view this dwelling well content, 

And nothing lack and nothing rue. 
If 'twere not for this accident 

Of iron spikes that run me through. 



[190] 



XII 
UNHASP YOUR DOOR 

Unhasp your door and let me in! 

God knows the place where I have been! 
Then ope your heart so pure of sin, 

And warm my body and my soul. 

Then ope your heart so fair that is, 
Your bosom white as white roses. 

And in your kirtle and your kiss, 
Oh, warm my body and my soul! 

"From ofif my door-latch loose your hold, 
Nor let the wind in from the wold ; 

My heart it is too small and cold. 
To warm your body or your soul." 



[191] 



XIII 
I MADE A LITTLE EATER 

I made a little Eater 

Upon an idle day, 
A jolly little trencherman, 

He ate my care away. 

A jolly little trencherman. 
When he sat down to sup. 

He gnawed me to the naked bones 
And ate mine honour up. 



[192] 



XIV 
WHO BEFRIEND ME 

Who befriend me, 

Who would mend me, 

Who full wearily would end me; 

I who dream here. 

Groan and gleam here. 

Lift my fountained cries and stream here, 

I, the lame 

Fool of fame. 

Singer of a secret name, 

Thus salute you, 

As I flute you. 

Saying softly, not to mute you : 

"Knight and dame. 

Praise and blame 

To my belled head sound the same." 



[193] 



XV 

THE SISTER 

Kallista 

She came to show her beauties dear, 

And brought her kissing eyes. 
Her breasts were like two little hills 

Where the snow-drift lies. 
Her hair went reaching down and down 

With little arms that hugged and slipped, 
And it was gold and it was brown. 

Her little feet, they twinkled, tripped. 
And sweetly, foolishly, they skipped. 

Her sister kissed her on the eyes 
Where hidden angels went and came. 

She drew her hair back from her throat, 
And there she did the same. 

She kissed her hair on either side. 
She kissed it on the part, 

She kissed her on her wide young breast 
Above her golden heart. 

(And then she took her by the waist 

And laid her on her bed; 
And then she said unto herself, 

"Good God, if this were dead!") 

[194] 



XVI 
TO A LIONESS 

The cage is empty where she paced, 

The tawny-flanked, the tawny-eyed. 
The great of heart, the great disgraced: 

The cage is empty where she paced, 
No more the humbled mighty stride. 

The gleam along her golden side; 

The cage is empty where she paced. 

But yesterday, to scrutinize 

The deepness of her golden eyes! 
Between the bars they gazed so still. 

One could have thought her iron will 
Had died — and died her great revolt. 

But hot and wild as flame through smoke 
The heavy lion-heart out-broke 

Through pain and patience, bar and bolt, 
Through frozen hope and dead surprise 

The deserts burned us from her eyes. 
The cage is empty where she paced. 

The tawny-flanked, the tawny-eyed. 
The great of heart, the great disgraced: 

The cage is empty where she paced. 

[195] 



XVII 
THE TWO SORROWS 

Sorrow, 
Sorrow, my pretty little sorrow! 
Once you were a dove to cling and coo, 
Then you followed like a lamb and loved me— 

I made a song of you. 

Sorrow, 
Sorrow, oh, my monster sorrow! 
Now, how changed your look! I dare not be 
In the room alone with you, my sorrow. 

Lest you strangle me! 



[196] 



XVIII 

YOU ARE SO KIND NOW YOU ARE 
DEAD 

You are so kind, so kind, now you are deadl 
I could take your hands, 
Loose the linen bands, 

Make them clasp my face. 

In a late embrace; 
To my lips at last. 

Hold them fast. 
(Once before you go. 
It might be so.) 
Lifting back your hair, 
I could make it bare — 
The patient forehead there. 

Take or spare. 

Stare and stare. 
Where the eyebrows turn, 
I could fix and burn 
Interrogation stern. 

So appease my sight 

On that jiouse of white. 
Where beneath the ring 

[197] 



Of your tresses' wing, 
Lived of late, the Thing; 
Lived of late, the still 
Inexorable Will. 

You are so kind, so kind, now you are dead! 
I could draw you up — 
As to lips the cup. 

Fold you near. 
Press and press you here. 
Crush your wreaths of rue, 
And ease my heart on you! 

You are so kind, so kind, now you are dead! 



[198] 



XIX 

YOU WHO HAVE TAKEN 
EVERYTHING AWAY FROM ME 

You who have taken everything away from me, 

See — peeping round the bole of any tree 
In this forest's mute advance, 

See how I sing and dance. 

Making merry in my place. 
Did you look for Hagar in my face, 

At whose tread the pansy dies, 
And peer for Ishmaels in mine eyes? 
Look rather at these little legs that play. 
That circle May poles, making endless May, 

Of woman turned to be a fay. 
And see, on every flower a pearl appears 

Where fell, in dancing, all my little tears. 



[199] 



XX 

HERE I CAN STOP AT LAST 

Here I can stop at last, 

Here cease from running: 
Here all is tight and fast. 

Raining or sunning. 
Safe from your eye of stone, 

Like toper drinking. 
Here I can lie alone, 

With my own thinking. 
Here I have my delight 

Where Horn-foot dances. 
Playing the livelong night 

With hiding fancies. 



[200] 



XXI 

THE MAKER 

The lover rejoicing in deserts, 

So went I, the one unregretful, 
The smiler in desolate places, 
The careless, the proud, the forgetful. 
The laugher — although you had stone me,- 
You, turning compassionate faces. 
Believed me alone and bemoaned me, 
Unknow^ing the bed, the embraces. . . . 



[201] 



XXII 
BLOW AND BEAT UPON MY HUT 

Blow and beat upon my hut, 

Wind of man's disdain! 
Loose my thatch and leave my fire 

Drowned in the rain; 
Let fall the winter of my fate, 

But me you have not slain! 

Birds of prey that pluck and flay, 
You break my heart in vain! 

Desire of the heart is naught, 
Nor wonder of the brain. 

Nor is it death that conquereth. 
For me you have not slain. 

God, or goblin, — what you will. 

King, or clown-in-pain, — 
Vanished laugher! who can that 

Deep insolence restrain! 
The earth has hid the dead man's tears. 

But me you have not slain ! 

f202] 



XXIII 
JAMIE 

The Ballad of a Dead Boy 

And that was he that died last night! 

Did no one hear a sound? 
The dead they die so stealthily 

When you have turned around. 
They wait until you have forgot, 

Until the moon is drowned. 

To die it is a secret thing — 
The closing of the book — 

The furtive dead they are ashamed, 
The dead that are forsook; 

So death it is a secret thing. 
And never man must look. 

Perhaps, they know what we will do. 
And why we dig the snow; 

They'd rather be in their own beds. 
Than to be used so. 

And thus they die so carefully, 

And hope we shall not know. . . , 
[203] 



They cleared the snow. They dug the ground, 

(They worked with little joy,) 
They piled it back, they piled it back, 

And sweat to their employ. 
Who would have thought 'twould take so much 

To cover up a boy ! 

They piled it back, and yet they say 

He never gave a start. 
They piled it there upon his hair 

Up-curling from the part; 
They heaped it long on his shoulders strong. 

They heaped it on his heart. 

They piled it on his young, young lips, 

They piled it on his feet. 
We saw it rise on his eager eyes. 

His eyes that were so sweet. 
We saw it drift on his limbs so swift 

And cover him complete. 

They took his thought, his mighty hope. 

And piled them high with mire. 
They piled it on his wistful heart, 

Upon his knightly fire. 
They piled it on his undone deeds. 

His unappeased desire. 

And strange, we never stayed their hands. 
We stood there in a ring; 
[204] 



He was so patient all the while, 

We heard no murmuring; 
But he must have wondered that we stood 

And let them do this thing. 

The hole it was so deep, so deep. 

We did not hear him sigh ; 
Nor did we know if he complained, 

Or gave one stricken cry; 
But, oh, he must have wondered sore 

That we stood careless by. 

We cannot keep the Dead, they say, 

The Law it disallows; 
And so we hid him near the gate 

Beneath familiar boughs. 
And so at night there, he can see 

The windows of his house. 

But still we wish he would not come, 

And with his earthy hair, 
Go walking round and round the house. 

Upon his feet of air; 
For we should be as dead as he. 

If we should see him there. 

He walks and walks around his house. 

And we can hear him go. 
He must believe he is forgot. 

We let him weary so. 
[205] 



He walks about, and yet there are 
No marks upon the snow. 

The young dead are so lonely there, 
At night beneath the rain, 

They come and come unto the door 
To be let in again; 

And when we will not lift the latch, 
They look so through the pane! 



He is so homesick in the night, 
When beds are warm within! 

To hear him stealing to and fro. 
It gnaws us like a sin; 

But it is a shame to call his name 
When he is looking in. 

It is a shame to speak to what 
The outlawed dead become. 

The Law is hard, the Law has barred 
Them out and struck them dumb. 

It is a sin to call them in, 

Because they cannot come. . . . 

When he went up the stairs that night. 

He whistled as he strode. 
When he came down the stairs again, 

He was a heavy load. 
When he came down the stairs again, 

He was a mortal load. 
[206] 



And thus his doom it had been writ 

In the book of Secret Law, 
And so they came and killed him there, 

And no man ever saw. 
He did not know, and so he gave 

A kind of a hurrah! 

He did not know that it was writ. 

His heart it held no fears, 
As calm as when on quiet sea 

The quiet moon appears, 
He dreamed, and often in his dream. 

He called upon his dears. 

They came and marked him on the brow, 
(Where little ringlets hung,) 

He did not know it all the while 
And so he laughed and sung: 

He did not know they were killing him 
Because he was so young. . . . 

His youth it must seem strange to them. 

The old and sullen dead. 
He took his golden youth to them. 

His gold untarnished. 
He looked upon the world and then. 

He took his youth and fled. 



[207I 



XXIV 
THE BED 



Ja 



mie 



For you the Spring he made a bed 
With all young flowers embroidered, 

The sweetlings of the year he led 
And wove for you a purple spread, 
With starry cypress at the foot 

And moon-flowers at the head. 

For you the Spring he made a bed. 

But when he saw you would not come 
For all the moon and May, 

He rolled his lacy linen up. 
And sighing went away. 

The Summer made a bed for you 
Of silk to cover from the dew. 
Of silky grass that bent and blew, 
With only roses peering through 
To see the silver sluggard there. 
For pretty posies to bestrew. 
Where Summer made a bed for you. 
[208] 



But never did the Summer see 

The drowsy dear encurled. 
She, weeping, took her tapestries. 

And went across the world. 

Then Winter made a bed as white 

As moons that freeze the livelong night; 

You left the fire, you left the light, 
^ind laid you down in love's despite. 
You laid you down and slept full well. 

And Dark that leaned on you was bright, 

Where Winter made your bed so white. 

The Winter never was so proud; 

He shut the chamber door. 
And years may come, and years may go. 

But Winter goes no more. 



[209] 



XXV 

BLIND EYES 

Jamie 

Blind eyes, blind eyes 

That gazed so long, 
Blind eyes that loved to see, 
What are you looking at, underground. 

That look no more on me? 

Stone lips, stone lips 

That spoke me kind. 
Stone lips that called me fair. 
Whom are you speaking to, underground, 

Is any lover there? 



[210] 



XXVI 
JAMIE 

His heart was like a friendly hearth 

Where the friends retire, 
And we would sit at evening 

To warm us by the fire. 

Now, he is a fallen house. 

The grass is in his door, 
And though you go, at evening. 

He bids you in no more. 

Come away, the grass is cold, 

The wind is all about: 
You cannot warm you at a hearth 

Where the fire is out. 



[211] 



LOVE-ENDING 

Go, go, 

Complete the overthrow! 

Low lutes that were so loud! 

Proud eyes for weeping! 

(O, poor that were so proud!) 

Tall grain for good reaping — 

Slain kings for sounjd sleeping! 

Cold hearts no hearth shall warm 

Long roads for rueing! 

How to perform 

This wonder of undoing! 

Beat down 

The alabaster town ! 

With what downfall 

Of amethystine hall! 

Shatter the towers. 

The feasts of fruit and flowers. 

The crystal cups and all — 

Tear the silver sleeve 

And break the golden bell! 

How to achieve 

This pale feat of farewell! 
[212] 



Part, part, 

Loose the prisoned heart! 
The velvet vassal flies — 
To the wind he goes! 
But no, he turns and lies 
Against me like a rose. 
With his slaying eyes! 
Intercept the sun 
That I may not see! 

How to be done 

With this Gethsemane! 

Wait, wait, 
Rend the delicate. 
The woven strands with care 
With care divide 
The intertwined hair, 
And side from side 
Withdraw the fair from fair! 
Make far the fair and fain! 
Fold back the stubborn arm! 

How to attain 

This irretrievable harm! 

Undo 

The arms that tether you! 
Unclasp the impearled belt! 
Softly not to wound; 
Let the girdle melt, 
Parting, half unfelt 

[213] 



Where once the lover swooned. 
Still, the fingers hold; 
The moony cincture tying! 

How to be bold 

With this excess of dying! 

Be still; 

Yield th' embracing will! 

Close the fluted ears 

On flutes that cease to speak. 

Never any more 

Spill the honied tears 

Down the kissed cheek! 

Come out and close the door, 

Nor listen at the key. 

How to restore 

The plucked fruit to the tree! 

Then, then, 

Turn back and part again! 
Console the ruined love! 
The crowned creature falls 
With his illustrious walls. 
How fares my dove? 
See who leans and calls! 
Look once more. And so — 
Close from further knowing. 

How, now, to go 

With this redeemless going! 

[214] 



There, there, 

Leave the golden Care! 

Let the heaped heaven — 

The princely prostrate lie. 

Last — the Look be riven ! 

Then go carefully, 

Lest he stir and sigh. 

So, with subtle stride 

The dead are left with speed. 
How now to hide 
The consummated deed! 



[215] 



TO THE TERRIBLE MUSE 

You asked, "Are you afraid of me at night?" 
My monster with the eagled head, 
My spreading banner on a bed; 

Your embattled splendours purple-ing my white. 

But I said, "Nay," with bold, foolhardy breath, 
"The desperate who holds you dear. 
Full fed with Fate, is fed with fear 

Too full to falter over you, or death." 



[216] 



A SKELETON ADDRESSES SOME 

CHILDREN OF A LATER TIME 

WHO PLAY WITH IT 

So, little wantons, pull me out. 

And rattle these chaste bones about. 

A hundred years of moons and suns 

Have looked in vain for these poor nuns, 

These white and shy and cloistered things 
That once were wild as winds and wings. 

Loose me from that meshed rust 

Of the long, long mouldered hair; 
Shake the dust 

From mine eyeholes. Let me stare 
Deeply at the day, the while 

You gaze agog at this great smile 
That gapes so wide for lack of lip. 

And gives the laugh without the quip ; 
As some poor clown dismay arrests 

That has forgotten all his jests. 

Now, crack my knee-joints merrily. 

In days when I was called a she 
They danced like leaves upon a tree; 

[217] 



Nor did they clack so, deep enough 
Sheathed in hyacinthine stuff. 

On this bank, embroidered well 
With many a purple flower-bell, 

How gaunt the starveling you incline, 
Lusty once with meat and wine! 

Ah, the dullest dead man knows 
Dust's a lean fare for the guest. 

And the buxom sluggard grows 
Lank with too protracted rest. 

Who would think this barred cage 
Once held a heart of lovely rage 

And ardent rivering veins of man, 
Through which the great red runner ran! 

And who would say that this was one 
Who carried high beneath the sun 

Proud lips whose words were lutes. 
And lions, nightingale and dove; 

And on her breast two moony fruits 
Where the lover leaned to love — 

Of princely beauty half afraid! 

And now, you little lads and maid. 
Without a by-your-leave, or thanks. 

Take my shanks 

To beat your little drum. 

And with little mirth alive. 
Stick a flower in the dumb 

Singer's mouth, and then disband 

[218] 



The mysterious fingers five 
Of the woman-master's hand. 

And, my little wantons, now 
With many a droll bufifooning bow. 

You set me up amid the flowers 
And cry with infant wit, 

"A name for this lean man of ours! 
A name, a name for it 

That here doth leanly sit!" 

But of these and those 

Of the names you chose, 
With all your infant wit. 

You did not name me. . . . 



[219] 



THE RETURNED 

When I come, 

Do not wonder if I shall be dumb. 

Nor stare 

At long roots knotted in my hair, 

Or the earth that lies 

Round my intolerable eyes; 

Nor interrogate me much — 

And on your oath, I charge you not to touch ! 

Let me hide 
What hangs along my side, 
In this purple vesture folded well. 
Keep secret the unspeakable. 

As I lie 
At the feast beside you, hold your eye 
From slipping sidelong when you pause and think; 
And do not look too closely when I drink. 

Do not tell the row 
Of other feasters what you know, 

Nor confess 
What you guess. 
Nor speak of whence I came; 
And if you call my name. 
Do not start, when I sit 

[220] 



Without reply, who have forgotten it. 

Pour the wine and quafif, 

Not to shake so when I laugh — 

This lean laugh. . . . Pour again! 

Drink and drain, 

Lest you fear and fall 

Before this shape equivocal, 

Dreadly changed. 
And the look estranged 

Of my hiding eye. 

Take care! Not too near by! 
;Lest you faint with cold 

Of my state insuccourably old — 
Lest you break and be 
Aware — past remedy. 



[221] 



THEN, EVEN THEN 

Then even then, you the King-maker, 
Reaching your coronal hands 
Down into my darkness, 
Wreathed me again! 
And I, that was humbled with hell, 
Was suddenly heavened with honour. 
And staggered with crowns 
Where the shades are. 



[222] 



THE GIFT 

Now that I am lame, 
Now the fierce is tame, 
Now the mane is shorn, 
And the banner torn; 
I bring thee, lord. 
The shattered sword. 
Take the tattered fool. 
Take the broken tool. 
Take the last offense, 
This ruined insolence! 



[223] 



FIERCE SPLENDOUR 

Fierce Splendour, since you have a mind to slay 

What you have loved a while; 

O, let not this, my strangeness, stop or stay 

Your hand — nor my persisting eye; 

And question not too close the deathless smile 

Which lifts my lips that die. 

My lord. 

Thus some poor Jew is slain — and cannot sigh 

For looking at the jewels on the sword. 



[224] 



THE GREAT CLOWN 

They said I must go on without my laughter: 
Ani hereafter, 

Look, like punished age, in careful wise 
From my chastised eyes; 
Too wise for late complaint. 
Or any hidden sobbing, fine and faint. 

They said I must go on without my tears, 
Caught culprit of the years; 
And leave my purple garment, golden- 
hemmed. 
For the gray tunic of the Time-condemned, 
In penalty for youth's too lovely wrongs. 

They said I must go on without my songs. 
And still the tongue that cried 
With silver crying, wild and windy wide. 
And break the lyre in my hollow side. 

They said I must go on without my heart, 
And so, part: 

Lean as lost Lazarus, ere he turned 
His frozen looks on those large eyes that 
burned ; 

[225] 



And so, go: 
Without one Job-cry for my over-throw, 
Without one groan, beneath a bell disguised, 
Of fools un-Paradised. 

They said I must go on without my laughter; 
And thereafter. 
Jog with eld and bear a leaden load. 

But ah, my laughter met me in the road! 
But ah, my giant hailed me in the way, 
The motley master in his pied array! 

The stalwart uncontrite! 
All undefeated by the threat of night; 
Too poor in penitence, too rich in folly 

For priestly melancholy; 

Too tall for whips of loss. 

Too careless for a cross! 

A gallant outlaw, saving life and hoard 
Of some poor captive of an evil lord; 
So he, my roarer, with grimace sublime. 
Made rescue of me from the train of Time; 
And like a flash of spears. 
He saved my songs, he saved my ruined tears. 
"What god so weak of wit and iron cold 
Would make a fool grow old?" 
He cried, and seized me in a shook embrace, 
Unhooding there the Great Clown's kingly 
face. 

[226] 



%Q 



THE CANDLE 

They said, "You will be milder, by and by." 
Yet Time, perverse, but gives their vs^ords the lie 
My curious candle now, beyond a doubt. 
Streams higher in the wind that puts it out. 



[227] 











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